SWIMMING sensation Rachael Williamson is the HotShot of the Year 2009.

The 14-year-old succeeds last year's winner, gymnast Rebecca Hall, after beating a whole host of junior sporting talents from our region, this following a month of voting.

The Anlaby Common resident was chosen by a panel of sporting experts at the Mail to be the fifth winner of the award after her medal success on her international debut earlier this summer.

The Kingston upon Hull Swimming Club star was selected in the Great Britain squad for the European Youth Olympics Festival in Finland in both the 400m and 800m freestyle after topping the UK age group rankings.

The youngster, a year 10 pupil at Wolfreton School, then made the final in both events – finishing sixth in the 400m before taking a bronze in the longer swim.

Following on from this, she claimed a silver in the 1,500m at the British Championships just a few weeks after returning from her Scandinavian adventure.

Her achievements have been hailed at the Kingston club by one and all and Williamson is held up as an example of what can be done with hard a lot of work and dedication, with the youngster training for close to 20 hours each week.

Such is the pride felt by all Kingston club members, they created a petition to try and help Williamson's cause in winning the HotShots Award, picking up 131 signatures in the process.

Something Williamson herself cannot quite believe, telling HotShots: "It's kind of a shock to think that 131 people would do that for me, it's just not what you expect.

"I was a bit shocked to receive the award as I did not even know I was in for it, I kind of just get on with everything.

"Other people in other sports who have won the award have done great things and all I do is swim, so it's weird to be compared alongside those names.

"It does help to know that people see that you're improving and training hard, we get told when we do well but you don't expect good things like this.

"It gives you quite a bit of a boost getting an award like this and getting the medal in Finland but you've got to make sure that confidence does not turn into cockiness and you keep focussed.

"When I get a minute to sit down I think about the medal I won in Finland and it makes me think 'wow' but then you've got to move on to this year because if you keep thinking about last year then you're just going to get overtaken and someone else will get your place."

This level-headed attitude sums up Rachael the person.

As well as her top achievements this year, she also qualified for the Olympic trials and took two silver and a bronze medal at the National Championships in 2008.

But in no way has her considerable success over the past two years gone to her head.

Spend any time with the talented teenager and you quickly see that she lives and breathes swimming and is supremely focussed on the task ahead.

To say she is a big advocate of training as hard as you can to get what you want is an understatement and ask any of her coaches or club mates and they will tell you her success is just as much down to her dedication than it is to her natural talent.

"Anything can happen and everything can be taken away from you in the space of a couple of months so you've just got to keep your head down and work towards your goals, as there is always someone who's going to try and beat you or who is better than you," she added.

"Sometimes it is hard to get yourself motivated for the training and you just want to go home and do nothing but then you just think what you're working towards and what you can achieve if you are working hard.

"You just need to keep working in training and working on your pacing and your skills as speed only gets you so far.

"I'm more of a distance swimmer and keep going for a bit longer but I'm trying to work on my stroke and improve it and that will help me."

Williamson, whose best time for 400m is 4min 20.72sec and best for 800m is 8min 56.73sec, is by no means pencilling in which Olympics she will make her debut at and instead prefers to just train as hard as she can.

She is of the attitude that if she competes as well as she trains then things like international call ups like Finland will take car of themselves.

Speaking at her main training base at Ennerdale Leisure Centre, the swimmer of five years said: "Going to do something like Finland gives you motivation as you just think you want to do something like that again to go and represent your country.

"I just want to do the best I can do and keep on going and keep pushing myself.

"I know what I can do as it shows in my training, I just want to keep beating my times and getting to the British Championships and try to swim well there and seeing where that takes me.

"You can aim for stuff but you can't expect it, if you expect it then the chances are you're not going to get there.

"You have to concentrate on doing your best because you never know what the other people are going to do.

"You've just got to concentrate on what you can do because anything can happen and you can suddenly stop improving.

"I'm not putting too much pressure on myself at this point as it's a long way off, I'm just concentrating on a season at a time."