Olympics, Commonwealth Games, World Championships, European Championships, all before you are 18.
That’s the story of Grace Davison. The recently turned 18-year-old has spent the last ten years dedicating her life to becoming a swimmer and before she could drive, she could call herself an Olympian.
The Sport NI Athlete Award recipient has a fascinating story which showcases the dedication and decisions needed to make it at the elite level of sport. But what was the first motivation for Grace to dive into the pool?
It was her sister as she explained: “My sister swam for Ireland and she’s four years older than me. I think like most younger sisters we want to copy our older sister. I wanted to follow what she did and that’s how it started.
“She qualified for the European Youth Olympic Festival with Ireland so my whole family went to watch. I think seeing that competition, watching all the sports, it all struck something in me that I really wanted to pursue swimming and see if I could be as good as her and compete in these kind of events.”
Dreams turned into reality when Grace was 14 and she got to compete at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, an experience that is daunting for most adult elite athletes, let alone a teenager: “I would say I enjoyed every second of it, but it was a hard two weeks. I was 14 in this big village with so many older people fending for myself really.
“Walking past Olympians, world medallists, world record holders. It’s not something that happens every day. Having dinner beside them. It made me want to get back into training, push on and hopefully be like them one day and I knew with my coach (Curtis Coulter) I could really turn into something special.”
It was this mindset from a young age that has driven Grace on to fulfil her own expectations. The Bangor swimmer has sacrificed many parts of her teenage years to ensure she has given herself the best chance of success in the pool. She said: “When I was younger, I just wanted to do stuff with my friends, go out shopping, go to their house or sleepovers but those things can’t happen all the time.
“I do sacrifice a lot of my social life, but I have an incredible group of friends who really understand my sport. They understand what it takes and when I say no to a night out they understand.
“But, I think what makes a good athlete is not completely sacrificing everything because you’re going to burn out and probably end up not enjoying the sport because you’ve missed out on so much.
“I always have the drive though that I want to succeed and I want to go to trials and qualify for Commonwealth Games, Europeans and more.”
What is this routine that Grace follows every day? And how does she hold up to her classmates? She explains: “So, I swim anywhere from 8 to 10 sessions a week. I train 6.30am to 8.30am most mornings so I’m here from about 6am doing stretching, pre-poll work and then stretching after as well so that takes up a big chunk of your day. Then I go to school and afterwards I’ll go to the physio, gym and do another swim session in the late afternoon.
“I sometimes think some of my friends are more tired because they go to bed later or they’ve been doing other things but getting up in the morning, I feel more energy going into school because I’ve been up longer. Other times I’m tired and I’m just keeping my eyes open but it’s trying to balance that.”
2026 is now underway with Davison recently winning medals at the McCullagh International in the 50m Freestyle, 100m Freestyle, 200m Freestyle and 200m Backstroke ahead of the Irish Open Championships where she’ll aim to swim a Commonwealth Games qualifying time to be selected for TeamNI.
2026 is another step in the journey towards the 2028 LA Olympic Games: “The focus is the Commonwealth Games. I like to split my four-year cycle to Olympics in half so it’s kind of two years to Commonwealth and two years to the Olympics.
“I’d love to make a final at the Commonwealth Games and that’s the aim in every event that I will be competing in because I have a few this year as well as Europeans with Ireland.”
Sport NI’s Athlete Award funding is made possible thanks to National Lottery players, who raise over £30m for good causes every week.