Jesse Washington will travel to the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China, next week with modest expectations.

As one of the youngest swimmers in his age group, the promising athlete admits his chances of earning a place on the podium are slim at best.

“I am going to be the youngest there, so I am just going there to get PBs [personal bests] and experience what a big competition like that is like for the future,” Washington said. “I am very grateful to be going to the Youth Olympics because not a lot of people get to go to events like this and I am very excited.”

Washington, who won multiple medals, including gold, at this year’s Caribbean Islands Swimming Championships in Barbados and at the Carifta Games Swimming Championships in Aruba, is competing in the 100 metres freestyle and 100 metres butterfly at the upcoming Youth Olympics.

He warmed up for the Games by producing a solid display at last month’s Canadian Age Group Championships in Winnipeg, where he set an age-group record and personal best in the 50 butterfly after covering the distance in 26.45sec. He also reached the final of the 100 freestyle.

Commenting on his form heading into the Games, which begin a week today, Washington said: “I feel good and have been training single sessions with Richard Goodwin. He has been looking at my stroke and doing some tweaks to it.”

Goodwin is encouraged by what he has seen lately from the top junior swimmer in the pool. “Jesse is looking very sharp and very focused,” the national coach said. “He is a very young man at 15 years old, but the height of maturity that you see in the preparation, involvement and the desire to excel is all there and bodes very well for the future.

“Jesse’s expectations are very cautious and you have to look at it in this respect: he is 15 years old and will be potentially competing against 18-year-olds, so any expectations have got to be geared towards that reality.

“I am expecting him to do well and expecting him to perform. But it’s got to be within his own bounds as opposed to a wide-open thing.

“This will be a little bit different if he was 18 years old and at the peak of the age limit that is placed on this event. He’s at the other end of the spectrum effectively. But we certainly expect he is going to do his best — and I know he always does.”

Goodwin said that competing in China will further broaden Washington’s horizons in many ways. “The whole aspect of the Youth Olympic Games, far more so than any other event we have ever been to, is this is much more of a balanced affair between what I will term the athletic element and the cultural exchange element,” he said.

“We are certainly looking forward to that.”