Treat Paris like 'just another swim meet' - Robinson

Ellie Robinson was only 15 when she won gold at the 2016 Rio Paralympics

Rio gold medallist Ellie Robinson has advised Paralympics debutants in the GB team to try and treat it as "just another swim meet".

Robinson won the 50m butterfly S6 and a bronze medal in the 100m freestyle in 2016 aged just 15, but retired at 20 after competing in Tokyo three years ago.

Twins Scarlett and Eliza Humphrey and Bruce Dee, from Robinson's old Northampton Swimming Club, will experience the Paralympics for the first time when it begins in Paris on 28 August.

"Every athlete is different but I like to think I was a big occasion swimmer. I used to love getting hyped up," Robinson told BBC Radio Northampton.

"I never really used to swim that well before the very last big competition of the season, so for me, the more excited and the more hyped up I got, the better I used to swim. Such a drama queen, so high maintenance."

Robinson was diagnosed with Perthes disease in 2012 - a condition affecting the hip joint in children.

She stopped training following her diagnosis, but returned to the pool in 2014 and made her international debut for Great Britain a year later.

The 22-year-old believes the standard of coaching at Northampton is the reason the club produces so many top swimmers, also including Maisie Summers-Newton, who will be trying to add to her two golds from Tokyo and six world titles in the French capital.

"What's so special as well is that the para athletes train almost identically to the able bodied athletes in the pool," she said.

"There's no special treatment and it's that professionalism and that mentality of 'it doesn't matter what disability you have, we're going to train you to best of your ability' that really sets Northampton apart."

The Northampton contingent will have the reassuring presence of head coach Andy Sharp alongside them in Paris, as he has been seconded as part of the ParalympicsGB backroom team.

And Robinson expects that to be an important factor in helping the Humphrey sisters and Dee perform at their best.

She said: "Your home programme coach knows you so well, they know what you're like in training, they can tell just by your face what mood you're in, whether you're nervous, what you need going into the cool room before your race, they know what to say to you.

"Having that comfort of familiarity around you in such an uncertain environment for Scarlett, Eliza and Bruce, they've never done this before so having something they know, it will be quite secure and grounding for them.

"They'll have that confidence that it's not all unprecedented, it's just another swim meet."

Great Britain Para-swimming squad

• Ellie Challis (S3/SB2/SM3)

• Stephen Clegg (S12/SB12/SM12)

• Rhys Darbey (S14/SB14/SM14)

• Bruce Dee (S6/SB6/SM6)

• William Ellard (S14/SB14/SM14)

• Louise Fiddes (S14/SB14/SM14)

• Grace Harvey (S6/SB5/SM6)

• Suzanna Hext (S5/SB4/SM5)

• Eliza Humphrey (S11/SB11/SM11)

• Scarlett Humphrey (S11/SB11/SM11)

• Tully Kearney (S5/SB5/SM5)

• Louis Lawlor (S14/SB14/SM14)

• Poppy Maskill (S14/SB14/SM14)

• Olivia Newman-Baronius (S14/SB14/SM14)

• Megan Neave (S14/SB14/SM14)

• Matthew Redfern (S13/SB13/SM13)

• Rebecca Redfern (S13/SB13/SM13)

• Faye Rogers (S10/SB10/SM10)

• Toni Shaw (S9/SB9/SM9)

• Harry Stewart (S14/SB14/SM14)

• Maisie Summers-Newton (S6/SB6/SM6)

• Alice Tai (S8, SB8, SM8)

• Mark Tompsett (S14/SB14/SM14)

• Cameron Vearncombe (S14/SB14/SM14)

• Callie-Ann Warrington (S10/SB10/SM10)

• Brock Whiston (S8, SB8, SM8)

• Iona Winnifrith (S7/SB7/SM7)