LUCY HOPE is in the form of her life – and she couldn’t have timed it better. Last month, the 20 year-old swimmer broke the Scottish 100m freestyle record at the British University Championships and she goes into today’s Scottish Short-Course Championships aiming to go even faster. “I'm really excited about the Scottish Champs – my main event is on day one which is unusual for me so I'm really looking forward to getting started off like that,” she said.

“I feel like I'm in good form so I'm hoping to improve my Scottish record again. I'm not resting into this meet so this is a good chance to see if I can race well when I'm fatigued and it’ll also give me a chance to work on my skills when I'm tired. Short-course is obviously different to long-course but I'm hoping that if I can perform well in short-course then that will reflect on my long-course times next year.”

Hope has much to look forward to in the coming months.

In October, she was named in the 21-strong swimming team to represent Scotland at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and with less than four months to go until the Opening Ceremony, the excitement is starting to build. With Hope making her debut at the event at Glasgow 2014, Gold Coast 2018 will be Hope’s second Commonwealth Games.

Three years ago though, she was only a member of the relay squad and as one of the youngest members of Team Scotland, there was very little pressure upon her shoulders. This time around though, there is far greater expectation both from external forces and from Hope herself. “I was only 17 at Glasgow and it was just an amazing experience to compete at a home games whereas this time, I'm hoping to really make an impact,” she said.

“I'm hoping to swim well, make finals, and if there's a chance, maybe win a medal. In Glasgow, I felt like the baby of the team whereas this time, I'm a lot more experienced. So I'm really excited to get out there and race and hopefully swim fast.”

The experience of Glasgow 2014 has, believes Hope, set her up nicely to make a mark in Gold Coast. There are countless distractions at a multi-sport event but the Edinburgh University swimmer believes that the experience she has gained in the past three years has ensured that she will be ready to perform at her best in Gold Coast. “100 percent, Glasgow set me up so well for these Games,” she said.

“Also, I was at the World University Games this summer in Taipei and we were in an athletes village there so that gave me another experience of staying in an athletes village. So that was good because I know what I should be doing, what I should be eating, what to avoid and how not to waste my rest time. My past experiences have helped me get used to the fact that things do go wrong in an athletes village and you just have to stay calm when that happens and not let it stress you out.”

Hope is originally from the Borders but moved to the capital in 2014 where she is studying business and accounting at Edinburgh University. In the last few years, she has established herself as a mainstay of the Scottish team and with Scottish swimming currently thriving, Hope admits that it is a pleasure to be a part of the national squad. “I feel like in Scotland we are really tight knit team and we know each other really well,” she said.

“Last Christmas, the Scottish team went on a training camp to Tenerife and I just felt like everyone was really in it together. I feel like everybody is working towards the same goals and everybody bounces off each other and motivates each other and it's the same in training every day – if anyone is down or not motivated then we’ll try and pick each other up and push each other on. Even though we might not all be swimming the same event, we still all have the same goals which is to perform at our very best.”

Hope has university exams next week so will be squeezing in as much studying as possible between races this weekend but she has the incentive that she knows that once her exams are over for the year, she has a warm weather training camp in Tenerife to look forward to. She does not leave until the 3rd of January though, which means that she must make Hogmanay plans, something she has not done for some time. “I’ll be at home for new year which is so unusual for me,” she laughed. “I’m normally always away on Hogmanay so I'm not sure what to do with myself.”

Hope will be in exalted company at this weekend’s Scottish Championships with Commonwealth champions Hannah Miley and Ross Murdoch competing, as well Olympic medallists Duncan Scott and Dan Wallace. Scott, Murdoch and European medallist Kathleen Dawson are using this meet as their final preparation for the European Short-Course Championships, which begin in Copenhagen on Wednesday.