IF you want to know more about the whole gamut of emotions that an elite athlete can experience, ask Polly Swann. Over the last four years, the

27-year-old rower from Edinburgh has had to deal with having her dream of competing at London 2012 cruelly snatched away from her due to injury, bouncing back from that disappointment to become world and European champion, and then being ruled out of the entirety of last season with a back injury.

Swann is nothing if not tenacious, though, and she has again rebounded from that latest setback to claim a place in the British team for next week’s European Championships, which begin in Brandenburg, Germany, on Friday.

Swann will be part of the women’s eight crew and the importance of this selection cannot be overstated for the Scot. While the squad for the Olympic Games will not be confirmed until later in the season, Swann acknowledges the event is an important stepping-stone towards Rio.

“I was absolutely delighted to be selected, it was massive for me,” she said. “It definitely indicates you’re heading down the path for the Olympics but you can never count your chickens, which I found out to my cost in 2012. A lot could happen in the next few months and if the boat isn’t performing as it should then there could be a crew change. But this is the starting point.”

It is the first international competition of the season, and the women’s eight Swann is a part of is a new crew, but this hasn’t lowered expectations to any significant degree.

“The general consensus in the camp is that we want to go out and win the Europeans,” she said.

“We’ve got tough goals but we’re also realistic in that if it doesn’t go our way in this event, it doesn’t mean it won’t work as the season progresses

“It’ll be good to pitch ourselves against the other Europeans and see where we are. In training, we’re going well and we’re excited about the project but you never really know until you’ve raced the rest of the world. Personally, I’m very excited. This will be my first international race since 2014 so it’s a pretty big deal for me.”

That Swann is still an international rower at all is something of a quirk of fate. Had things gone to plan, she would have competed at London 2012 and then promptly retired. She had taken a sabbatical from her medical degree at Edinburgh University and planned to return to her studies. When she missed those Olympics, she decided to give her sport another shot. “It’s hard to describe how I felt missing London. You put everything into it and then it gets taken away and I was just devastated,” she admitted. “I found the whole thing so difficult but it made me think, ‘I’m going to make it the next time’.”

That resolve was severely tested last year, with Swann’s injury so severe that several of the medical staff told her that she might never row again. Swann said: “It was tough being out and I had to spend a lot of time training completely on my own which I hadn’t done much of before.

“There were moments when I doubted whether I was doing the right thing and wondered if I should just call it quits.

“But I knew if I didn’t give it a real go, I’d always regret it and that would be worse than trying and failing. I learnt a lot about myself when I was out injured and I was so determined to overcome it and make the team this year.”

Swann’s current priority is making a good start to the season at the European Championships, but she admits that with Rio just over three months away, her thoughts occasionally drift towards what would be her Olympic debut.

“It freaked me out when I realised it was less than four months to go,” she said. “I think you’ve got to let yourself think about it and how exciting it will be. For me, it will hopefully be my first Olympics and it will be amazing because Rio’s an incredible city and I think that the whole team has a great opportunity to do well out there.

“I think it’s important not to shy away from thinking about it because we do four years of training and competing and the Olympics is the one race that really matters.”