Sophie Ryan has taken a big step from a local pool in Warrnambool to one of the country’s biggest swimming stages, racing at the Australian team trials in Sydney after competing at Warrnambool Swimming Club’s June meet just days earlier.

The 15-year-old Port Fairy swimmer contested the 50-metre backstroke and finished second in her heat, recording a personal best in the process. The trials were being watched closely because they helped shape selection for July’s Glasgow Commonwealth Games, putting Ryan in the middle of a field built around some of Australia’s best swimmers.

Ryan said the shift from a regional meet to a national trials environment was real from the moment she arrived. She described the experience as really good, but a little bit scary because there were so many good swimmers around her, and said every corner seemed to bring another big name into view. She warmed up in the same lane as Lani Pallister, Kaylee McKeown and Mollie O’Callaghan, and while she was not racing in the same heats as those Olympians, she was close enough to see the scale of the competition.

That is what made the performance stand out. Ryan had been working hard in the lead-up with coach Jayson Lamb, with help from Warrnambool’s Mark Jansz on her gym program and Olympic rowing medallist Karston Fosterling on the rowing machine. She said the community feeling among good friends and good coaches played a big role in her continuing to swim, after starting the sport in 2021 because she felt left out when primary school friends took it up. Five years later, she is the only one still swimming.

Her results in Sydney did not come from nowhere. Ryan and Eli Kerr had raced at Warrnambool Swimming Club’s two-day June meet on June 6 and 7 before heading north, a reminder of how quickly regional swimmers can move from a local program into a national selection event. The trials also featured other swimmers including Akalanka Peiris, while Kerr had already completed several races and was due in the final of the 400-metre freestyle on the night of June 11.

Ryan has said she wants to make a state team or a national team one day, and her personal best in Sydney suggests she is edging closer to that level. What remains unclear is whether second in her heat was enough to move her on in the trials or bring a selection breakthrough, but the path from Port Fairy to Sydney is already carrying her into stronger company than she has faced before.