EPPING FOREST’S 2012 Paralympic hopeful Emma Hollis has set her sights on making her mark at this year’s European Championships in Reykjavik after receiving another £1,000 windfall from the Lloyds TSB Local Heroes initiative.

For the second year running, the 17-year-old swimmer was handpicked as part of 250 youngsters across the country to receive funding and expert tuition from the likes of five-time Olympian Mark Foster.

The Chigwell School pupil, who is ranked second in Europe in the 200m individual medley, believes the extra funds will go a long way towards helping her fulfil her dream of competing at the London Aquatic Centre in three years’ time.

She said: “It is my second year in the Lloyds Local Heroes scheme and last year it helped enormously. The funding helps massively with travel and costs.

“But the support that you get from everyone on the scheme is unbelievable and it makes it a lot easier to carry on swimming and reaching for your goals. I really don’t know what I would do without the award.

“My form this year has been pretty good – at the British Long Course championships in Sheffield, I picked up a personal best in every race I went in and at the Junior Nationals in March I picked up 13 golds and won top female.

“But the key for me is just to try and remain consistent throughout the year so that I can keep picking up medals at big championship events.

“I’m pretty confident about the year ahead but all the time I’ve got an eye on London, which is especially exciting because it is so close.”

At last week’s Roehampton launch Hollis received insights into food and nutrition and training techniques from former swimmer Foster – who was Britain’s flag bearer at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

And Foster, who made his Olympic debut in Seoul in 1988, believes Hollis is on the perfect path towards future glory.

“Emma has shown great potential and it is obvious she is incredibly talented,” said Foster.

“The tricky thing for athletes is getting funding for themselves in the years before they make it into the full GB squads.

“Emma has already taken some big steps towards that and hopefully this funding can help her continue to improve.”

Lloyds TSB is providing £1,000 to over 250 emerging young sportspeople identified each year across Britain, in the run up to London 2012 and beyond.  Visit Lloydstsb.com/Localheroes.