A multiple European long course champion before the age of 18, Scouse sensation Freya Anderson’s inexorable rise shows no signs of slowing ahead of the LEN European Short Course Championships.
And it was at Tollcross, where the continent’s finest will gather in December, where the freestyle racer burst onto the scene with four medals at the 2018 European Championships.
The Liverpudlian dived into the pool kicking and screaming as a kid, dreading swimming lessons before moving to boarding school Ellesmere College, where everything changed.
Her prodigious talent was first recognised in 2016, named British Swimming’s Emerging Swimmer of the Year and crowned European junior champion.
Anderson burst into the limelight in becoming world junior and national champion in the 100m freestyle in 2017, a bittersweet season in which she suffered a serious spine injury.
But it was 2018 when she imposed herself on the international stage as a senior athlete, scooping double bronze at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.
Then came Glasgow, where she anchored Great Britain to 4×100 mixed medley gold alongside Olympic and European short course champion Adam Peaty.
She also reached the rostrum in Scotland with the 4×200 freestyle squad and bronzes in the 4×100 medley and mixed 4×200 freestyle.
Anderson will play a key role in Britain’s medal hopes in the relay events, but is an outstanding individual performer in her own right.
She narrowly missed out on an individual European medal in 2018 and underlined her Championship credentials with a personal best and an eighth-placed finish at this summer’s World Championships.
Her short course record is slender thus far – although she stunned in December when she scooped four gold medals at the Scottish Short Course Championships in Edinburgh.
Having been named in the squad but failing to start at the last edition of the LEN European Short Course Championships, held in 2017 in Copenhagen, she’ll be keen to make an impact.
But given the runaway success that is Anderson’s career so far, Glasgow crowds can expect to see Anderson light up Tollcross from December 4-8.
Follow Freya on Social
Twitter – @freyaandersonn
Instagram – freyaanderson_
Short course personal bests
50m freestyle – 24.75 (2018)
100m freestyle – 52.92 (2018)
200m freestyle – 1:54.59 (2018)
50m butterfly – 26.63 (2017)
Fun Fact
Freya has A-Levels in art and geography.