Stirling swimming star Evan Jones is playing a careful game of copycat as he embarks on his senior international career.
The 18-year-old moved to the University of Stirling from swimming haven Millfield School in September, joining Steve Tigg’s famed training group.
It is a group that includes Britain’s most successful Olympian at a single Games, Duncan Scott.
Jones and Scott are both known for their freestyle and individual medley skills and now work closely day-in, day-out as training partners.
And with the great Scot to learn from, Jones is now paying close attention to his team-mate’s technique and effort in order to replicate his success.
“My group is split in two ways, there’s the form side and then a freestyle and IM side which I’m on,” he said. “I train mostly with Duncan Scott and Jack McMillan and everyone knows them as very experienced swimmers at a very high level so it’s great to train with them.
“I spend a lot of time looking at what they’re doing and trying to replicate it for the future.
“It’s about seeing what works for them and then trying to implement that into my own swimming.
“The training here is quite different to what I’m used to so during the easier sets we have to make sure that our technique is perfect all the time and then when we hit the hard sets, we hit them as hard as we can.
“So Duncan and Jack have taught me when the best times to ease off are and when to really work for it.”
Jones fired Team Scotland to 4x200m freestyle and 4x100m medley bronze alongside Scott at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham last summer, achieving his first senior international medals in the process.
But standing on the podium in anticipation for his silverware brought an unexpected surprise for the Stirling-based swimmer – the realisation that his sister would be helping present his medal.
“That [the Commonwealth Games] was a big step forward for me,” he said. “I thought it was just great to get on the team and then coming away with some medals at that point of the year was a big learning curve and hopefully I can now push on from that.
“The Commonwealths were brilliant as my parents now live in Birmingham and my sister and my mum volunteered at the Games.
“Then my sister was working at the pool venue and on the night I won, I didn’t realise that she was actually helping hand out the medals. It was a bit of a surprise but a really nice surprise.”
Jones now has his eyes on next week’s British Swimming Championships in Sheffield.
He is relishing the prospect as he looks to improve ahead of a looming World Championships and Paris Olympics.
“I feel pretty confident ahead of champs,” he said. “It’s obviously the Olympics next year which is everyone’s goal but I’ve just moved training programmes so I’m taking this year as a transition year. I’m going into champs with no expectations really and seeing what I can do.”
Tickets are still available for the British Swimming Championships in Sheffield (4th-9th April). Head over to //britishswimming.org/events-and-tickets for more information – or watch all the action from every session on the British Swimming YouTube channel.
