Stephen Clegg believes professional and personal balance helps him in competition

By Oli Dickson Jefford, Sportsbeat

Stephen Clegg says striking the perfect balance between professional and personal life has held the key to recent successes ahead of the Para Swimming World Championships in Manchester.

The Edinburgh ace will be in action on multiple fronts on home soil in Manchester, with many eyeballs on whether he can match his two medals from last year’s event in Madeira.

The 27-year-old won world gold in the S12 100m butterfly 12 months ago and believes that result - following on from failing to win gold at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics - helped his mentality in the build-up to big competitions.

He said: “It was a monkey off the back kind of thing. In Tokyo, I was going in as world No.1 and had broken the record two months before.

“It was a really tough period to process how I was feeling at the time. Going into Madeira I was in a bit of a down year because I was trying to focus on just enjoying the sport again and start appreciating parts of my life outside of the sport.

“By doing that I rediscovered a lot of my love for the sport. It was important to find that balance between my personal life and my professional life, and not make my life wholly about swimming.

“I think that ultimately allowed me to be more relaxed approaching big competitions, and that was a big moment for me approaching Madeira. I think that’s a big part of it, I was just enjoying the moment competing.”

169 world champions will be crowned across seven days of racing, with over 500 swimmers from 67 nations set to compete in the newly refurbished Manchester Aquatics Centre pool.

In front of his home crowd, Clegg is gearing up for multiple events which include races over butterfly, freestyle and backstroke, though he has not had an easy build up.

Injuries have affected him in his run up to the competition, though he is now fit and raring to go.

“In general it’s been an up and down year for me with injuries and illnesses,” added Clegg.

“For quite a while I wasn’t looking forward to competing, but in the last few weeks things have really moved forward in the right way and the concept of having a home field has got me fired up now - I’m really ready to go.

“I’ve not been able to do any butterfly training which is my main event, so that was a big part of the reason why I wasn’t so excited to race or compete too much. The one I care about the most is the one I was struggling physically to do.

“Thankfully, thanks to the fantastic support team I have back in Edinburgh, they’ve been able to get me back fully fit and I’ve been able to train normally again for the last month and a half.

“Now I’m back in the swing of things and I know I’m coming into it 100%, which makes the whole experience so much better.”

British Swimming is the national governing body for swimming, diving, para-swimming, artistic swimming, high diving and water polo. To follow our divers and other athletes at the World Championships in Fukuoka, make sure to follow us @britishswimming on Instagram and Twitter or head to www.britishswimming.org