Week to remember for bronze winner Molly

Renshaw won a stunning bronze in Saturday’s 200m breaststroke final, however, she missed out on a spot in the final of 50m breaststroke on Thursday and the semi-finals again proved a step too far in the 100m.

Mansfield-born Renshaw clocked 1:09.39 minutes in her semi-final to finish 12th overall but the 18-year-old insists her early exits in the lesser distances mattered little after her podium berth over the weekend.

“It’s been an amazing week, a great experience and a learning curve as well, I can take a lot from it and learn from it,” she said.

“It wasn’t as fast as I was hoping to go, I was hoping to go a little bit faster obviously but I had a good day (on Saturday), so overall it’s been pretty good.

“I’ve learned a lot, I tried to control my nerves (on Saturday), I think I’ve still got a lot to learn there but I’m just doing my thing.

“I obviously can’t complain about my competition overall – it’s my first Commonwealth Games and I’ve come away with a medal.

“I’m really happy with that and hopefully I can improve on that in future games.”

Renshaw has already come a long way – three years ago she was the youngest member of the Great Britain team at the 2011 World Championships.

And the former European junior 200m breaststroke champion hopes there are plenty more podiums to come – as well as an appearance at the 2016 Olympics.

“Getting up on the podium made me realise that I really do want this, and this is what I need to be striving for every year from now on at major meets,” she added.

“Rio is definitely on my list of things to do, it’s always been an aim of mine since I was a little kid to make the Olympics, so if I made it there it would be amazing.

“I’m improving all of the time which is encouraging. I’ve got a few personal bests this year so it’s obvious things are working well and hopefully it will show in seasons to come.

“For now though, I’ll enjoy this success, have a few days’ rest and then get back into training for a bit as I’ve got a few competitions later on in the season to concentrate on yet. Hopefully I can end the year strongly.”

Commonwealth Games England (CGE) leads and manages the participation of the Team England at the Commonwealth Games and Commonwealth Youth Games. We work with sports, sponsors and Sport England to support the development of athletes and their sports, and to achieve success at Games-time.