A Victoria University student has been selected as a member of New Zealand women’s freestyle relay swim team for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

First-year Tash Hind studies calculus and German part-time, balancing her studies with a 20-hour training regime each week.

Of her selection for the Olympics, Hind says: “I think other people are more excited than me because it has sunk in for them but I can’t really imagine it yet, not until I get there.”

“Everyone has told me that if anything is going to bring out the best in you it’s the Olympics so I’m just looking forward to the atmosphere.”

Hind will spend the next five months intensifying her training to drop two seconds from her Olympic qualifying time. In July she will head to Japan for an eight-day training camp before the Games begin in August.