No Bermuda athlete will be busier than Emma Harvey at the Commonwealth Games this year.

Harvey has achieved the qualifying standard in six events and has started the season with a bang after breaking her own national record in the first major meet of 2026 last month.

Knocking 0.11 seconds off her previous best in the 50 metres butterfly, Harvey set a new mark of 26.59sec at the USA Pro Swim Series in Austin, Texas, during a packed schedule in which she raced 15 times over four days. The 24-year-old also reached the A final in five of her six events.

The string of top times surprised Harvey, who was unused to competing at the Olympic-style meeting.

“I took on a big schedule and the meet had semis and finals, which is pretty unusual outside of a world championships or Olympics, so that added a bunch of extra races which I've not been used to in a very long time,” Harvey said.

“I was super happy breaking the national record in the 50 fly as that was definitely not expected because it was on the last day of the meet and I think I’d already raced 13 times at that point, which is almost double what I would normally race at a meet like this.

“But the older I get, the more mysterious sometimes these performances become. I took a few months off and when you first come back, you’re obviously further behind than where you were when you started the break.

“I think I’m now at the point where I’ve exceeded where I was before taking the break but I thought it would be more like March, April time where I’d be seeing these performances, so I’m super pleased that I’m ahead of schedule.”

Harvey’s eyes are already on the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July. She now has plenty of experience of the atmosphere at a major Games after competing at the Olympics in Paris in 2024 and she has set some big targets.

“The big dream is to win a medal at the Commonwealth Games,” Harvey said. “That would definitely be the pinnacle of my career so far and something I’m setting my eyes on this year.

“I'm really grateful for the position I'm in and that I don’t need to be chasing a qualifying standard, so I can really focus on training for the next few months. I can really push the boundaries with training because the main event is not until July.

“I don’t think I’ve had a season before where I haven’t had the pressure of hitting a qualifying time to get to a major meet or haven’t had the NCAA season to focus on.”

Harvey completed her Master’s degree at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), but has decided to remain with her former college coaches and teammates as she embarks on a new phase of her career.

“I decided to stay here just because the training is exactly the training that I need,” Harvey said. “I adore my coach. She’s amazing and creates a really great environment, so even though I’m not competing with the team, it’s still good to be around them every day.

“Some of my closest friends are there and it’s a perfect balance of getting to train with people I love and coaches that I love. There are great facilities and Los Angeles is an amazing place.

“Having left college I now also have the flexibility to choose my own competition schedule and to make sure that it’s aligning with my priorities and I’m setting myself up for success at the really important international meets at the end of every year.”

Harvey also ventured into the world of business during her break last year, taking a prestigious internship, but anybody worried that Bermuda might lose one of their star athletes to the real world can think again.

“It was definitely an amazing experience and I worked for three months in San Francisco at a consulting firm called Bain & Company and then I worked for three months at a start-up based in New York,” Harvey said.

“Both experiences were amazing and I was certainly tempted at times by the prospect of staying for an amazing career opportunity, but ultimately my thought process was that I’ve invested 20 years of my life into this sport and I feel like there’s so much more for me to achieve.

“I feel that I owe it to myself and to Bermuda for so many years of support to absolutely go for it. Work will be there when I finish and the places I worked were very cognisant of how big of a deal it is to go to the Olympics and potentially for a second time.

“They were all very supportive of my decision to take two years out and then come back to the working world after the Los Angeles Olympics.”