Twelve months ago, Theodora Taylor finished fourth in the 100m freestyle at the Aquatics GB Championships and seemed to have made it on to her first senior GB team as the announcement in the arena confirmed that the 4x100m freestyle relay team had made the selection standard for the World Championships. Any joy was short lived, though, as there had been a mix up with the qualification standards in the announcers booth and the quartet had in fact fallen just short .

Not that it seemed to have any lasting effect on the young Welsh woman, who instead spent the summer racking up medals on the European and World Junior stages.

There was the danger of a repeat in 2026: a 5th‑placed finish in the 100 free locking her out of that relay conversation, despite having equalled her lifetime best of 54.20. But relay selection was secured courtesy of a fourth‑placed finish in the 200m freestyle in a Welsh record time of 1:58.31, and rubber‑stamped with an individual selection for the 50m freestyle on the last night.

“I’m so happy with that, that was probably my favourite swim of the week,” she said afterwards. “It’s a big PB and I’m happy to qualify individually for Europeans this summer.”

There was, though, just a hint of the amount of work she had put in across the six days of competition in London. “Since it was my last one it was kind of a bit harder. I’ve had some quite long evenings racing here.”

That understatement reflects the fact that her week read like a multi-event marathon, with swims in 7 events, 6 of which saw her make finals. When asked if it felt like she’d swum “about 600 events,” Taylor laughed, but this breadth of excellence has become something of a trademark for this Swiss army knife of a swimmer. After all she set senior Welsh Records in the 50 free and 200 IM whilst also contesting the 50m breaststroke final and only sitting out the 100m final of that stroke to focus on the sprint. She is pragmatic about how long she can continue that workload and also how that might translate to the summer meets, where she is a shoo-in to be swimming for Wales in Glasgow, to go with selection for Europeans.

“I have quite a wide choice of events I can swim.” she says, “but I definitely think I’ll be cutting a few out, not swimming as many as I have this week, because it’s taking a toll on my body and I want to make sure that I can swim as fast as I can in the events that I choose.”

For now ,though, she is making the most of the opportunity to race as much as she can. “I think with practice it gets easier, but as I get older I know that it’s not going to be possible” she says. “In a few years’ time I know I won’t be able to have this schedule just because of how your body kind of gets older.

“I qualified for all these events, so I may as well swim them and do it while I can while I’m still younger.” That’s certainly what she’ll be doing this summer as she contemplates competing at the European Juniors, before heading to Glasgow and then on to the senior European Championships, all in the space of six weeks.

At the Commonwealth Games, she’ll be on a team with Matt Richards, who has been impressed with her progress. “We’ve had her come up and train with us in Manchester a few times so I’ve had the pleasure of training with her and seeing what she can do. And yeah, she’s some talent” he said having just competed with her in the mixed 4×200 relay at the AP Race London International. “There are people that you look at and go ‘you could go a long way here’ and I think she’s one of them. It’s pretty exciting for British Swimming, let alone how exciting it is for Swim Wales.”

For Taylor that opportunity to represent Wales still looms as a highlight. “I’m so looking forward to representing Wales at the Commonwealth Games” she said, “I went to Youth Commonwealth Games a couple of years ago and it was a great opportunity. I’m so excited to represent Wales on a senior stage this summer, I think it’s going to be great.