Swimming: It's Helsinki or swim as Dan Wallace gets Euro call-up

NORTH BERWICK swimmer Dan Wallace spends almost as much time commuting to and from Edinburgh to train as he does in a pool each week.

But patience and determination has paid off for the 17-year-old, who has been named alongside three other Scots in the British team to take on Europe's elite at the European Junior Championships in Helsinki, Finland from 14-18 July.

The European Championships are the major focus for Wallace this year but selection proved a massive challenge. The competition is for athletes with 1992 and 93 birthdays and Wallace was born in the latter year.

Yet, in this year's British Gas Swimming Championships in Sheffield, he finished third in the 200m individual medley, taking two seconds off his personal best and breaking the Scottish record he set last year at the British Youth Championships. He also finished fourth in the 200m breaststroke and sliced off four seconds from his PB in the 400m individual medley.

"This will be the first European Championships for me as I was too young a year ago and I'm delighted to be going," he said. "I swam the 400 and the 200 IMs and 200 BS but qualified for the team in the 200 IM so I'll be swimming that."

Life for Wallace sounds a hard daily grind but there is great support in his camp. Laurel Bailey is his coach at the Warrender club in Edinburgh. His family provide the essential twice daily lift to get him to his two daily sessions of swimming.

"I spend between 18 and 20 hours in the pool each week, two hours in the weights room and another three doing circuits after pool sessions," he said. "My parents give me lifts every morning then again straight away after school. After that, I go home, eat and get to bed."

Helping support Wallace's development is the East of Scotland Institute of Sport (ESIS), part of sportscotland's institute network which focuses on preparing Scotland's best athletes to perform on the world stage by providing high performance expertise.

"ESIS is very useful," he said. "They look after my weight training and they organise weekends through the year at Stirling, where we get taught about nutrition, sleeping, stretching and physio.

"At the end of the year, I hope to move up to full institute. I got my qualifying time for the institute at the British trials. I needed to get 2.06.8 and I swam 2.05.8 for the 200 IM, which was a new Scottish record for under 16s."

Wallace plans to take part in next month's Commonwealth trials. He feels he's too young to make it into this October's Delhi-bound team but is hopeful about securing a place in four years' time. "I'm not near the qualifying time this year but I'm up there so it's good for the next time round in four years," he added. "Glasgow in 2014 is the event I'd like to compete in so hopefully I'll be getting a time for the team then."