IN her parents front room - which is decorated with congratulations balloons and wall-to-wall medals and trophies - sits the Michael Owen of the swimming world, oozing confidence as she talks about her one true love.

Unlike most teenagers, 17-year-old Linda Hindmarsh, from Horsforth, relishes jumping out of bed at 6am to undergo several hours of physical exercise and likes nothing more than competing against the best in the world.

Perhaps this is just as well considering this exceptional young swimmer will have the weight of British sporting hopes resting on her shoulders when she sets out to conquer the Commonwealth Games, which start on September 11.

Her eyes sparkle through her luminous green contact lenses as she talks about the day she beat the British number one, at Sheffield's Ponds Forge, to gain her place in the England team for the Games.

"I was so pleased to get a place. I was building up for it and knew I had a good chance. I was just training and training but once I had swam, it was like 'yes, I am going'."

Her enthusiasm, and overwhelming self-assurance that she will one day be the best in the world, goes some way to explain why Linda is already a World Championship finalist, European Youth Champion, National Senior Champion and British Junior record holder, all in the 200m breaststroke.

There seems to be no stopping her success The Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpar will be the biggest competition of Linda's career to date.

Ranked fourth in the 200m breastroke, she knows she has a chance of winning a medal and the competition - Olympic champion Penny Hayes and World Record holder Sam Wiley - does not worry her.

"You cannot predict anything in swimming," she explains. "It is not only you that is working hard, it is the rest of the world. But, hopefully I am working harder and better than everybody else."

Her dedication to training goes some way to demonstrate how desperately she wants a medal.

From now until the Games she will swim for two hours every morning and then do an hour-and-a-half weight training.

This is followed by half-an-hour land training in the evening and two hours in the Pool for good measure.

Thanks to lottery funding awarded to the England team, Linda can swim full-time.

She left Horsforth School after achieving three As and six Bs in her GCSEs and left behind her school friends to concentrate on her life as a swimmer.

"It is what I want to do. I have missed out but I have never regretted choosing swimming," she said, and added that she would give up all the normal teenage activies to be the best in the world.

Linda has been swimming for City of Leeds since the age of five, pushing herself through regional and national competitions to finally become part of the strongest club team in the country.

The City of Leeds team currently has eight swimmers in national teams for Kuala Lumpar and the Leeds International Pool - where the team is based - has just beenn chosen to host a regional Centre of Swimming Excellence.

The establishment of the centre will help swimmers train for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

Linda is one of five City of Leeds swimmers in the Performance Centre's 12-strong squad.

For her, and fellow Leeds-born swimmer Gavin Meadows, it will be the final step in their progress into world class competitive swimming.

Aside from preparing herself for the Games, this cheeky young athlete is even trying to find ways of psyching her opponents.

For the big day she wants to exchange her luminous green contact lenses for cats eyes in an attempt to warn others that she is as sleek and fast as a wild feline.

Linda left for Kuala Lumpar yesterday.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.