Britain’s Paralympic swimming team is one of the best in the world. They train at a camp in Majorca to stay in top form
In the sweep of arid land that extends as far as the eye can see, there is one patch of brightness; a gorgeous, sparkling swimming pool set in the middle of nowhere. It’s part of a privately run swimming centre in Colonia Sant Jordi, in the south-east corner of Majorca, and it is where some of the world’s greatest swimmers escape to for a few weeks every year, for intense pre-competition training. In this Olympic year, it has been bustling.
Teams from Spain, Germany, France and Canada have already trained here in the run-up to the London Games, and five-time Olympic gold medal winner Ian Thorpe uses the pool when he’s away from his native Australia. For two weeks in May, the 31-strong British Paralympic swimming squad arrived for their final pre-Games training camp. I went along to see what sort of training Paralympians undergo as part of the long haul to – hopefully – a place on the podium.