Oxford's Rosie Bancroft openly admits 2014 has been the worst year of her swimming career, but she believes things are finally starting to fall into place after an outing at the Olympic pool in London.

Bancroft has hardly settled this year – moving from City of Oxford Swimming Club to City of Glasgow due to her studies – before choosing to relocate again, this time to Manchester.

The latest move, to British para-swimming’s national high performance centre, came after positive news for Bancroft.

Bancroft, who had a foot removed as a baby, shone as Britain went head-to-head with Europe as part of National Paralympic Day in the London Aquatics Centre, placing sixth in the multi-classification 400m freestyle.

Bancroft can’t wait to consign what has happened so far in 2014 to the scrapheap and move on to bigger and better things.

“I’ve had a really hard year and I’ve moved a few times, so it’s been the worst year of my career so far,” she said.

“By the end of the season I was able to get my times back down to something I was happy with.

“I’m about to move to Manchester, so I have a lot of exciting stuff coming up.

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Latest Sport news “I’m not competing again until November and I’ll hopefully be getting some personal bests next season.

“I had fun in London and that is what it was all about.

“I’d been off for three weeks, so I wasn’t expecting a personal best or anything but I gave it my best and that is all you can do.”

The 19-year-old clocked time of 5mins 11.03secs to finish sixth in the 400m freestyle.

The National Paralympic Day duel was the first international swimming event to take place at the London Aquatics Centre since the 2012 Games and Bancroft relished every second of it.

“I haven’t been back since trials for London 2012.

“So it was nice to swim there again and it wasn’t about times, it was about showcasing the talent of our swimmers,” she added.

“It was great that so many people came to support us – National Paralympic Day is brilliant for raising the profile of our sport.

National Paralympic Day aims to promote Paralympic sport across the UK, giving people the opportunity to relive the wonder of 2012 and to support Paralympic sports.

#NPD2014 is supported by the Spirit of 2012 Trust. Visit Paralympics.org.uk/npd2014.

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