MOUNT Cotton resident and Paralympian Paige Leonhardt is vying for a spot on the Australian team to swim in Mexico in October.
Competing at the National Championships at Chandler from Sunday until Thursday, 16-year-old Paige is racing in the 100 metre breaststroke and butterfly, 50 metre freestyle and 200 metre medley.
There are 20 places in the Australian team to attend the World Para Swimming Championships which starts at the end of September in Mexico City.
Paige moved with her family from Port Macquarie to Mount Cotton in January.
She is a year 10 student at Carmel College.
Coach Jeremy Wardrop said Paige’s current time for butterfly would have placed her third, instead of sixth, at last year’s Rio Olympics.
“We are quietly confident of medalling at worlds,” he said.
Mr Wardrop said he and Paige had formed a really close bond in the two years they had been working together.
“Post-Olympics has been an interesting time. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster coming back to the reality of training. That happens to all Olympians.”
He said Paige had come out of the experience as a better athlete.
“For a 16-year-old girl her focus on swimming is amazing.”
Mr Wardrop said the Commonwealth Games 2018 team would also be selected during the coming national championships.
He anticipated that Paige would compete in that event and the Para Pan Pacific Championships in August.
“It’s going to be a busy 18 months.”
Paige trains for 20 hours a week, which includes a Queensland Academy of Sport gym program, and swims 40 to 45 kilometres each week.
The teenager was severely injured in a car crash when she was five years old. She started swimming in 2012 as part of her rehabilitation.
The National Championships will be televised live on Channel 7.
