Bicester Blue Fins’ Kieran Bird was ecstatic after qualifying for the European Youth Olympic Festival for the first time with a personal best at the British Championships in London.

Bird, 15, touched home first in 2mins 4.12secs to win the junior 200m butterfly final at the London Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park.

He is set to head out to Tbilisi in Georgia with Team GB.

“It was a pb for me,” he said. “And although it was not the time I was hoping for, I’ve won the race and that is really good going.

“I was going for around 2.02, but I had a bit of an adrenalin rush and went out too fast for the first 100m.

“I’m going to the Europeans now which I was aiming for and that’s really cool.

“It’s a pretty amazing feeling to go there and I’ve never been abroad to compete before, so it’s a totally new experience.

“It was a tough race. The last 50m was really hard, but it was a good swim and I’m pleased with how I got on.”

He completed his busy five-day schedule by finishing fifth in the junior 100m butterfly final, touching home in a time of 57.77 seconds.

And he admitted the volume of events he has competed in across the week sets him in good stead moving forward.

Bird added: “To be honest I am still feeling alright after all the races.

“But I am a little bit tired because it is the last day and it’s been a tough week of racing.

“As the week wore on that last little bit of each race started to get harder and harder because of everything I’ve done.

“It was all a learning curve.

“I’m learning to deal with having six races in a week plus finals, so it is about understanding how to get maximum rest and make the most of each event.

“I think it has definitely been a successful week for me overall – the strokes I have been targeting went well.

“I haven’t done as much on the individual medley, so we will see what we can do in training to get it better.”

Despite his supposed lack of energy, Bicester’s Bird ended the week in style by putting in a strong performance in the 100m butterfly.

“I think it was really good, I went 0.6 seconds or so quicker than my heat swim,” he added. “It was all about my turn, I was told to work my turn and the underwater phase – I did that, and I guess it paid off.”

Bird’s teammate Tom Thornley who also qualified for multiple events, had to pull out through injury.

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