Andrew Jeffcoat started swimming when he was 10. Now the 22-year-old is set to make his Commonwealth Games debut in Birmingham later this year.
But he's on a mission much greater than himself.
"Throughout my high school years my coach Ken Nixon who has unfortunately passed away, he sort of had a lot more belief in me than i did," Jeffcoat says.
Jeffcoat grew up in the small Coromandel town of Colville but carried out his schooling at Hamilton Boy's High School. It was there he swam under Fairfield club legend Nixon for six years.
Together they reached the World Champs in 2018, but a year later Nixon tragically died at a swim event in Taupō.
"From when that happened he never felt like he gave Ken everything that he could with his training and he vowed to himself that he would never let that happen again." says Jeffcoat's current coach Mitch Nairn.
Now the backstroke gun is fulfilling a promise he made as a teenager, taking on the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke in Birmingham.
"Knowing that Ken is looking down on me, knowing that I didn't let him down in the end and eventually I made it to where he obviously he had goals for me to go as well. To finally make it is very special too," Jeffcoat says.
Jeffcoat now is well and truly on the hunt to be the Commonwealth's best.
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