Matt Richards had not even started secondary school when the London Olympics took place in 2012.
But the teenage swimmer says watching the event at home with his mother was the inspiration that kickstarted a journey from promising junior to a genuine Olympic hopeful for Tokyo next year.
“I watched practically everything I could watch at the Olympics,” Richards told BBC Sport Wales. “It was massive in terms of inspiring me.”
After an outstanding junior career, the 17-year-old will get his first taste of a world class senior competition when the second International Swimming League gets underway in Budapest, Hungary, on Friday.
The ISL sees many of the world’s best swimmers divided into teams. They race a series of events before the top four go through to the Grand Final.
In the ISL’s debut season last year, team Energy Standard won the Grand Final in Las Vegas.
This year’s event will be swimming’s first major competition since the coronavirus outbreak. The entire event will take place behind closed doors in Budapest.
“I’m really excited,” Worcester-born Richards continued. “It’s been goodness knows how long now out of competition.
“So the thought of being able to race again is just the best. Then the fact that it’s not only racing again but it’s racing against the best swimmers in the world is amazing.
“The opportunity to be a part of this league is massive for me and for swimmers in general, because I think this is pushing the sport in a direction it’s never been in before – in a more professional direction.
“Every four years at the Olympics, swimming is the second most-watched sport behind athletics. Then it disappears for four years. Athletics has got the Diamond League. Cycling has got the Tour de France. But swimming is never on the television. It just gets lost, I think.
“The opportunity for all of us to be part of something where we’re racing frequently in a very professional environment with incredible production crews, it’s really exciting to see where it could go.”
The ‘Budapest bubble’
Athletes and staff will have to ‘bubble’ for the entire six-week event, with organisers effectively taking over two hotels on Margaret Island in the Hungarian capital.
No one can enter or leave the island (aside for training and the races). There is also regular Covid-19 testing.
Richards – who was European junior champion in 2019 – says he agreed to these restrictions “in a heartbeat” as it meant he could finally race again.
But his attention is already turning to a likely Olympic trials event next spring and the rearranged Tokyo Games next summer.
“I’m still technically a junior until the end of this year,” he said.
“I would’ve liked to have transitioned from a junior to a senior this year through the competitions that were scheduled. But with everything being postponed it’s gone from having the opportunity to transition to just throwing myself in at the deep end.
“But that’s how I’ve always been throughout my career – I like to go big or go home.
“While Rio was going on, I was thinking ‘Tokyo, I’ll probably be a little bit too young but you never know’. But as the years went on it was becoming more like Tokyo’s possible, then it was Tokyo’s the goal now.
“At my age and my stage of my career it’s still at a point where we’ll continue to drop time quite a lot as I continue to grow. So having that extra year is massive for us.”
Richards will compete for the NY Breakers – one of 10 teams in this year’s event.
All matches featuring British team London Roar – as well as all the semi-finals and Grand Final – will be shown live on the BBC Sport website, BBC Sport app and on the BBC iPlayer.
