Ollie Taverner won bronze as he represented Great Britain on the international stage for the first time.

The 14-year-old, from North Watford, finished third in the 50m breaststroke at the Standard Energy International meeting in Italy in a time of 30.11 as he came up against swimmers from Russia, France and Italy.

Mum Lisa said: “He’s absolutely buzzing. It was his first international. He was there just to get experience and to take it all in. I don’t know how he pulled it out of the bag, but he did and he keeps on doing it.

“He was desperate to get a medal but I think he thought it was out of his capabilities. It was his last race of the meeting and his last opportunity to try and win one and he went and did it.”

He produced a personal best to gatecrash the podium in a top-class field of some of Europe’s best up-and-coming swimmers for the age band.

Lisa said: “It’s hard to formulate in words how I feel. I don’t think my chest can expand any more. I’m so proud of him. He just keeps on achieving.”

Parents were discouraged from going to Italy to support their children as the GB coaches wanted to put the team under the microscope and give them a full insight into what top international competition is like, so Lisa had to make do with watching him at the awards ceremony via a live stream on a computer.

She said: “We got a message from him which said he was ‘buzzing’. We have spoken to him since and he absolutely loved every second of it. It was his first experience of going away with the Great Britain team and it was an amazing experience for him.”

The get-together was very technical and thorough with the competitors having to give samples to check their dehydration levels and the like.

But after the serious work was done, Taverner and the others were feted like superstars at the five-course-meal awards dinner and dance.

That came after a busy weekend for Taverner, who also competed in the 100m breaststroke and the 200m breaststroke where he finished seventh after recording a personal best of 2.27.24.

Back on home soil, and back at the Mount Kelly Swimming School in Devon, Taverner now has a different challenge to meet.

He is taking some of his GCSEs a year early this month but has some catching up to do after missing out on some revision to go to Ligano last week and to the British Championships before that last month.