DESPITE the pressure of attempting to seal her place at this summer’s IPC World Championships, Paralympic star Stephanie Millward says that she headed to Glasgow this week full of excitement.

The 33-year-old, who scooped five medals at London 2012, is competing at the British Para Swimming International Meet at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre this week, kicking off her campaign in the S9 100m freestyle today before competing in the 50m freestyle and 200m individual medley on Friday, 100m backstroke and 100m butterfly on Saturday and 400m freestyle on Sunday.

The event doubles as trials for July’s World Championships, which also take place in Glasgow, but more importantly for Millward, who trains with Bath’s Aquae Sulis club, it presents an acid test for the subtle changes to her approach honed under coach John Dougall.

“I’ve been with my coach, John Dougall, for about a year of solid training now and I’m looking forward to seeing how the little skills that we’ve worked on help me,” said Millward, who clinched five medals at the 2013 World Championships in Montreal before a stunning seven-medal haul at last year’s European Championships in Eindhoven.

“It’s a trial for the World Championships but for me, it’s a trial for Rio (the 2016 Paralympics). I want to try out those skills and I’m really excited to see how it goes. I could go there and swim terribly but everything could go well and I swim absolutely wonderfully. You have to be positive.

“It’s great that it’s in Glasgow because it’s the same pool that the World Championships were in and it’s the same pool that the Commonwealth Games were in.”

Millward may be full of jovial optimism ahead of her Glasgow campaign but her training schedule in the lead up to the competition has been less than straightforward following the temporary loss of her training base.

The University of Bath pool is currently undergoing a complete renovation, meaning that Millward has been forced to get on the road to put in her hard hours of practice.

“The pool at Bath Uni will be closed until April, meaning that I’ve had to travel something like 300 miles every week for training,” she said.

“We’ve gone from Millfield School to Frome; miles and miles. Because of all the travel, we’ve not been able to do as many sessions as normal. It’s been tough but once the pool in Bath is back open, it will be just like an Olympic pool, which will be really great.

“It will have underwater cameras so that we can watch our turns and things like that and we’ll also be able to study the biomechanics.”

Fellow London 2012 Paralympian Aaron Moores, from Trowbridge, is also in action in Glasgow, in the S14 50m and 200m freestyle, 100m backstroke and breaststroke, and 200m individual medley.