Nearly eight months after a career-threatening injury, Roy-Allan Burch is back racing in a competitive environment and believes he can still qualify for next year’s Olympics in Rio.

Burch was one of four of the Island’s swimmers who competed at an Arena Pro Series event in Minnesota last weekend, and while his time of 24.67sec in the 50-metres freestyle was well outside his best, just being in the pool was something of an achievement.

The Bermuda swimmer tore tendons in both knees in a freak accident in March, and was still in a wheelchair in April. Such was the damage caused that Burch said it would have been easy for him to stop swimming altogether.

“No one would have blamed me for it [walking away], because the result of what the injury did to my body was so significant in the deterioration of the lower half of my body,” Burch said.

Quitting was not a thought that ever entered his mind, however, especially as he did not truly appreciate the seriousness of his injury in the early stages of his recovery.

The fact that the Olympic qualifying standard, which he believed he was just weeks from reaching when the injury occurred, was still in front of him also played a part in his determination to fight back.

“That [Olympic] goal never changed, and it only made sense to keep going once I had come this far,” Burch said. “I didn’t have a complete understanding of how serious it was.”

That understanding really only came at his six month check-up, when his doctors were happy to see him walking without any significant help.

Not that Burch was ready to quit anyway.

As he saw it, the injury was just another hurdle that he had to overcome.

He also did not want to look back in ten years’ time and wonder “what if.”

“It would have been a strange place in my life to have just stopped and not try to beat what I had ahead of me,” Burch said. “It was something I needed to do for myself so I didn’t look back and think ‘I could have beaten this’. Not giving up is what it all comes down to.”

That motivation is what has driven him so hard in his recovery, in his time in the gym, and in setting the goal of reaching the Olympic standard towards the end of March, which will be the anniversary of that terrible injury.

Being back in the pool does not mean that Burch is fully fit, far from it, there are still things on land, such as running, that he cannot do. However, it is in the water that he needs his legs to function as they once did, and Saturday’s swim makes him believe that is possible.

“I still can work towards the Olympics, and it’s really just about getting more leg drive. My upper body is stronger than what it was before, so I think that just getting double the strength I have at the moment will take me much further than people may think.”

Burch does not expect to be competitive any time soon, and for the Bermuda Olympian, his time on Saturday was not all that important it was merely an indication of where he is, and how far he has to go.

Needless to say, he feels a lot closer to his goal now than he did several months ago.

“There is a lot of work still to be done [to reach the Olympics], but as long as I make sure I do all the right work, 90 per cent of the time, it can be done,” he said. “Things didn’t feel as far out of reach after that race took place.”

Whatever happens, Burch has until the first week of June at the Bermuda National Swimming Championships to hit his mark. Burch hopes to have qualified before then, or at least reached the standard the Bermuda Olympic Association set for a swimmer to be invited to be a part of the squad.

The goal though is the same as it ever was, it just so happens that now it appears more attainable.

“Everything is mapped out where I will be at a certain level of strength in order to hit an Olympic qualification [standard] some time after March,” Burch said.

“I can see the big picture now. I feel like I can do that by April. I’m starting to feel a lot better about what my body is capable of in the water.”