The Great Britain Olympic squad was applauded for its successful games in Sydney last month where they amassed a total of 28 medals including 11 gold.

But despite the euphoria experienced by the majority of the British athletes there was disappointment for the swimming contingent who unfortunately didn't manage to win a single medal.

But Crook swimmer Chris Wilson is hoping to make amends as he holds high hopes of reaching the next Olympic games in four years' time.

The 15-year-old Wear Valley Amateur Swimming Club member has shown great progress in the last year and as a result his coach is aiming his protg at reaching the world's greatest sporting event.

His coach is Gary Hollywood who was Assistant Coach of the City of Birmingham SC who have

supplied numerous swimmers to the Olympic squad so he has seen what it takes to reach the required standard.

Gary rates Chris highly saying, going so far as to compare him to a British Olympian medalist: "I've never before had a swimmer that I've been able to say to 'you've got what it takes to get to the Olympics'.

"He's swimming faster times at 15 than Nick Gillingham was who took silver in the 200m breaststroke at the '88 Olympics.

"He's on a four year plan aimed at getting him to the next Olympics in Athens in 2004."

Chris explained: "The plan is to get to the next one but I'll only be 19 then. Then we want to get a medal at the one after that.

"We want to get the times own every year. In February I'm going to try and break the national record in the U-16s at the Leeds Grand Prix in the 200m breaststroke."

At the British National Age Groups in August Chris, whose main event is the 200m breaststroke, confirmed the excellent improvement he has made in the last year when he won silver medals in the 100m (1.09secs) and 200m (2.27secs) breaststroke in the age 15 category. He recorded personal bests in each which included shaving a massive three seconds off his 200m time.

Although he came away with two runners-up medals, Chris was still satisfied with his performance. "I'm pretty pleased with the silver medal (in the 100m). I wasn't expecting that but I improved because I took 1.5secs off my best time."

"He really is something quite special," said Gary. "The remarkable thing is last year he didn't even finish in the medals. He's made great progress."