It all started in London for para-swimming sensation Ellie Robinson and she’ll finally have the chance to compete in the city later this year.

The capital has stepped in to host the rearranged 2019 IPC World Para Swimming Championships after Malaysia were stripped of the right to host the event earlier this year.

Robinson, inspired to progress by London 2012, will get the chance to star in the same pool where she was wowed by the feats of Ellie Simmonds.

“Watching London 2012 was the catalyst to my career,” said the Northampton-born ace. 

“It really inspired me because to be able to watch someone like me, someone I can relate to, it really made me want it and believe I could do it.

“Being a part of the crowd first was great because it allowed me to see how much everyone gets into it, to understand there are young people in the crowd you can potentially inspire.

“This is going to be my first home crowd and I’m really looking forward to it. I enjoy pressure and having a big audience to entertain.

“I enjoy the now or never moment, to have to prove something to myself and what better setting to do it in.”

The British Para-Swimming team’s last major competition in the pool yielded a record 55 medals, the World Para Swimming European Championships in Dublin last summer a resounding success.

Every British para-athlete that wins either gold or silver in the event from 9 to 15 September in automatically banks a place at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

There will be more at stake than just that for Robinson, keen to renegotiate her relationship with the capital after a testing first-ever senior camp in the city aged 13.

“London has good and bad memories for me, it’s quite mixed, so it’s about putting the bad memories aside and convincing myself that London is the right place,” she said.

“It was my very first camp with the senior athletes at 13, it was quite difficult. We don’t talk about the London camp!

“It’s going to be nice to put those demons aside – to show that 13-year-old girl I came to London and got past all of that.”

  • The 2019 World Para Swimming Championships are coming to the London Aquatics Centre from 9 to 15 September. Tickets will be on sale soon via the British Swimming website: www.britishswimming.org