Kinsman was one of eight Mount Kelly swimmers from a variety of nations that were selected for last week’s European Junior Championships in Slovakia.
Edie Price won silver in the 200m butterfly for Great Britain, while Poland’s Flawia Kamzol won the 50m butterfly – in total, swimmers from the college won 10 medals.
“I think supporting our athletes here, not just as athletes, but as people, and guiding them through this journey is a really important thing for us,” said Mount Kelly’s assistant director of swimming Greg King-Limb.
“They do need guidance, they are still children at the end of the day, and I think that’s a big part of the programme which we do really well is making sure they are nurtured and looked after over some pretty difficult, challenging years.”
Kinsman will soon leave to take up a place at Aquatics GB’s performance centre in Manchester, where Olympic gold medallists such as James Guy and Matt Richards train.
And while Mount Kelly will soon say goodbye to Kinsman, they are happy to have helped her get into a position where an Olympic dream has the potential to become reality.
“You get to this point now where with Blythe she’s 18, she’s ready to fly the nest,” director of swimming Emma Collings-Barnes adds.
“We’ve done everything we can for her and that’s appreciated by her and her parents.
“We know that we couldn’t have done anything else so actually it’s okay – all we want Blythe to do is go on and reach her full potential and we’ve opened those doors for her to be able to do that, so it’s now someone else’s time to take on Blythe and all her wonderful habits and challenges as well.”
