Jack McMillan
“I started quite early, I had a natural feel for it compared to the other kids in the lessons, so that’s how I got started into it."
Swimming has always been a team sport for Jack McMillan.
The Belfast native will make his Team GB debut as part of the world-beating men’s 4x200m freestyle relay squad that heads to Paris 2024 as favourites for gold.
The list of Northern Irish gold medallists at the Olympics is an exclusive one and the 24-year-old has a gilt-edged opportunity to join such elite company this summer.
It is fitting that McMillan heads to the Games with a strong relay focus when you reflect on the way in which his love for the sport was kindled at Bangor Swimming Club.
Taking part in local ‘Telletots’ competitions and leading his team to victories taught McMillan exactly what it meant to be part of something bigger.
“It was all about getting as many points as you could for the club and for the team and less about what you did individually,” said McMillan.
“There was an atmosphere of all supporting each other and celebrating our collective success. I enjoyed that aspect of it tremendously.
“A lot of people think it’s a very selfish, individual sport, which it can be, but you always have team-mates and with the way you support each other, it can be team oriented as well.”
Clubs like Bangor are the backbone of the grassroots swimming community, and National Lottery players help keep that foundation healthy, with more than £368M of National Lottery funding having been invested into grassroots and community aquatics projects across the nation.
McMillan started swimming, a vital life skill, at the age of four when his dad was working at a local leisure centre. It wasn’t long before sport fed a competitive, ruthless instinct.
“I started quite early, and I just enjoyed swimming I guess,” said McMillan. “I had a natural feel for it compared to the other kids in the lessons, so that’s how I got started into it.
“I think it was that natural love for it at the start. I kind of knew I was a bit better than the other kids, so that spurred me on as well. Then when I got into primary school, we did swimming as our PE lesson, and I was a bit better than the other kids.
“I think that aspect of being better and being the best came from an early age. I kind of wanted to continue that until now.”
All swimmers are tough, but McMillan has had to prove himself even more than his peers and spin plates to get his competitive career off the ground.
McMillan impressed at the European Youth Summer Olympic Festival and combined a rigorous academic schedule at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution with punishing training hours - to the bemusement of schoolmates.
“My friends used to think it was kind of crazy getting up so early in the morning,” McMillan said.
“I just don’t think that they understood how much training goes into it.
“We were getting up, pretty much in the middle of the night, right before school and after school as well.
“It was a lot of training at a young age with a lot of commitment.”
McMillan made his international debuts in Irish colours, competing at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju.
During the pandemic, McMillan took an enforced seven-month break from swimming and kept fit in the back garden with loaned gym equipment and on a spin bike.
He banked a spot at a second Olympics with his performances at April’s AquaticsGB Championships and can’t wait to perform in front of a packed La Defense Arena crowd in Paris, with his brother and girlfriend both set to make the short hop across the Channel.
“I’m really excited to get in there and the whole experience of what an Olympics brings,” said McMillan, who is now one of more than 1,000 athletes on the National Lottery-funded World Class Programme which allows him to train full time, have access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering technology, science and medical support.
“It is going to be a lot bigger than anything I have done in the past.
“I need to keep my mentality even now, not get too ahead of ourselves and keeping the excitement going until we get there. I can’t wait.”airy farm.
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