Swimming: Boyle staying low key before world champs

Lauren Boyle is staying under the radar before the swimming World Championships. Photo / Getty

You won't get New Zealand's best swimmer Lauren Boyle shouting the odds about herself any time soon.

That's not the Auckland freestylers approach, and it's worked pretty well thus far.

From announcing herself with a fourth placing in the 800m at the London Olympics in 2012 - and only a stroke or two away from a medal - Boyle has made significant strides.

She won three bronze medals over the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle events at the world championships in 2013, grabbed a world short course record and is clearly prospering at her Gold Coast base.

She moved there last November and, apart from the odd trip home and a recent sojourn to swim in the Santa Clara meet in California, Boyle has restricted herself to working under noted coach Dennis Cotterell at the Miami Swimming Club.

Boyle heads to Barcelona shortly for a staging camp with the rest of the 10-strong New Zealand squad heading for the world championships in Kazan, Russia early next month.

She will arrive there for the 400, 800 and 1500m events as a swimmer her rivals will be eyeing. Her expectations of herself have grown in the last three years but she's a low key, high profile athlete.

"High expectations can be very good, and very bad at the same time," she said yesterday.

"I try to make sure I almost don't put too many concrete expectations of what things are going to be like and how I'm going to feel when I'm there.

"The most exciting thing I can do for myself is swim faster than every before. That's the best feeling and that will get me the best result possible."

Boyle knows she's gone from relative unknown to a key figure when the medals are fought out in Kazan.

"I am a much more renowned as a swimmer than I was two years ago. People notice me know whereas before I was very much up and coming, I'd just finished my college career (in the United States) and not many people get faster when they finish in the American colleges."

At 27, she puts being a relatively late bloomer down to getting into quality high performance environments later than many other swimmers. However she insists she feels no different than she did before all her success in the pool.

Swimming New Zealand are in a mess right now, with no coach or high performance boss. Boyle acknowledged it had affected her because it forced her to move to Australia. Then again, "that's also something that's been a good thing for me as well".

While some top class swimmers have pulled out of the worlds - defending champions over 200m and 100m freestyle respectively Frenchman Yannick Agnel and Australian James Magnussen for a start - not so for Boyle.

"My events are stacked and no one's shown any signs of slowing down. In my events, definitely everyone's going to be there fighting for the podium. It's going to be really exciting, and challenging."