WOOD Abbie

General
FINDING HER FEET
After winning a number of medals at junior international level, including a gold at the 2015 European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, she says she initially struggled with the step up to senior competition. Following a 20th-place finish in the 400m individual medley at the 2017 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, she considered quitting the sport. "Going to a worlds at the age of 18 should have felt like a great achievement, but it didn't. I went PB plus 10 [seconds] in the 400 medley and I think it was a real shock to the system. I was close to quitting. Why would I want to carry on with something that made me this upset and this embarrassed? I feel like I had everything I wanted as a junior and then when I went to the seniors the 400 medley started to get harder. I'd feel like I had the best of what I had as a junior and then when I hit senior I was like a little fish in a big pond and it really overwhelmed me. I just lost my confidence that it wasn't as glitz and glam as it was in the junior scene. Now [speaking in 2020] I feel like I am starting to find my feet in the senior scene a bit more." At the 2021 European Championships in Budapest, Hungary, she won her first senior international medal in an individual event, with silver in the 200m individual medley. (swimmingworldmagazine.com, 10 Nov 2020; eurosport.co.uk, 03 May 2021; Instagram profile, 24 May 2021; SportsDeskOnline, 28 May 2021)

ABBIE WOOD ACADEMY
In 2019 her first club, Buxton Swimming Club in England, launched the Abbie Wood Academy, which was named in her honour. She has been involved in coaching young swimmers at the academy. (buxtonswimmingclub.co.uk, 22 Aug 2019)