St Ninian’s student Letisha Ellis will represent Great Britain in the European Deaf Swimming Championships in Lublin, Poland which starts on Monday.

The Microgaming IoM Swimming Club para-athlete broke no fewer than five British Age Group deaf records in the 13 years age group at the Utmost Wealth Solutions Isle of Man Swimming Championships last week (full report and photographs in next week’s Examiner).

Letisha broke her favoured breaststroke events in all three distances in exciting races involving her training partner and rival Kiera Prentice along with long-term mentor and Commonwealth Games finalist Steph Brew.

Letisha followed this by also taking the 50m and 100m freestyle event standards which are new records for her.

The teenager will contest these events plus some of her lesser favoured races in Poland for Team GB next week.

She is very excited to don the GB tracksuit and would like to thank her sponsors and supporters for helping this dream become a reality: RL360, Manx Deaf Society, Clearwater Management Services, Skip and Tara, Grandma and all who kindly donated on Letisha’s GoFundMe page which her uncle set up.

Fellow Isle of Man swimmer Charlotte Atkinson will also represent Great Britain when she competes in the Sette Colli event in Italy.

The Commonwealth Games star forms part of a 39-strong squad which will be competing in the Stadio del Nuoto in Rome in preparation for this summer’s European Championships in Glasgow.

The event begins today (Friday) and continues until Sunday.