A 15-year-old St Albans swimmer is set to represent Great Britain at the European Deaf Championships.

Lucy Jordan-Caws, a pupil at St Albans Girls’ School who has been deaf since birth, has been called up to represent Britain at the championships in Lublin, Poland.

After moving to St Albans at the age of three, Lucy started swimming lessons at Wesminster Lodge and at the age of seven moved to the Verulam Amateur Swimming Club and moved up the ranks under the guidance of coach Zofia Kozien.

Lucy, who is in Year 10, also attends early morning swimming classes at Hatfield Swimming Club, waking up at 4.30am three times a week to train for two hours before school. She travels around the county to attend deaf swimming events and training camps, and came second at the ‘100 Butterfly’ at the Great Britain Deaf Swimming Nationals, missing out on the gold by 0.3 seconds. She also holds the GB deaf swimming records for age 15 in three different lengths.

Following the European championships, Lucy is hoping to resume her training schedule to qualify for the World Deaf Swimming Championships in Brazil in August 2019.

She said: “I am thrilled to be asked to represent Great Britain at the European Deaf Swimming Championships. This will be my first international event and I am looking forward to meeting other deaf swimmers from other countries.”

Outside of deaf swimming, Lucy has also swam at county and regional championships, where she requires a starting light to alert her when the buzzer goes off. Unlike other disabilities, deafness is not recognised by the International Paralympic Committee, which means it does not attract government, Sport England or lottery funding and participants have to cover the costs themselves.

Lucy’s mum, Pauline Jordan-Caws, said: “Lucy has done amazingly well to balance her swimming with her studies. She receives so much support from her teachers and friends at St Albans Girls School.

“She will have her GCSE exams next year in 2019 and I am confident that she will be able to continue to balance her swimming training with her studies and hopefully secure qualification to the World Championships.”