When the opening ceremony for the Games of the 28th Olympiad dazzles the world on August 13, Melanie Nocher will be there, taking it all in. The record-breaking swimmer has been selected to represent Ireland at the Athens Olympic Youth Camp, a gathering of 400 young people from around the globe. Over 16 days they will take part in sports, arts and cross-cultural events. The programme, which also includes visits to four Olympic competitions, is intended to encourage participants to become the next Olympians and Melanie, aged 15, is ideally qualified. She holds 18 records at junior and senior levels in long-course and short-course events in Northern Ireland and last month broke the Irish junior record for the 100m backstroke.

Pearse McGuigan, coach to the Irish junior team at the European championships in Glasgow last year, where Melanie swam backstroke and freestyle, said: “Her potential is immense. She is a fantastically talented swimmer. For someone so young her level of achievement, at provincial level, at national level and at international level is astounding. She was one of the youngest competitors to represent any country at the European short-course championships in Dublin last December.” As a member of Swim Ireland, she set a Northern Ireland record in the 50m backstroke at those championships.

Her rewriting of the record books continued this February at the Irish senior schools championships when she took more than two seconds off the 400m freestyle record, which had stood for 14 years. Melanie, who started swimming competitively seven years ago, trains six days a week, clocking up 13 or 14 hours, including a double session on Sundays. She is within 0.07 seconds of matching the qualifying time for this year’s junior European championships, which are to be staged in Lisbon, at 100m backstroke and at the end of the year hopes to compete for Northern Ireland in the junior Commonwealth Games in Australia.

Melanie, a member of City of Belfast swimming club, lives in Hollywood, Co Down. A pupil at Strathearn College, where she is sitting her GCSEs, she can hardly wait for the trip to Athens. “I’m really looking forward to watching the Olympics and it will be nice to get a break like this after doing my exams.”