Jacob ready to take on nation's best

DEVONPORT Aquatic swimmer Jacob Templeton will this week head to Adelaide for the 2013 Energy Australia Swimming Championships.

DEVONPORT Aquatic swimmer Jacob Templeton will this week head to Adelaide for the 2013 Energy Australia Swimming Championships.

Jacob has been classified as a multi-class athlete, due to a degenerative eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa.

This means that he will swim in the visually impaired S13 class against Australia's best from the recent Paralympics, including world record holder Matthew Cowdrey.

With the Devonport Aquatic Centre being reconstructed, Jacob has had to travel from Burnie to Launceston to train.

He is also a year 12 student at St Brendan-Shaw College, which means he has had to overcome the difficult task of balancing his study and training loads.

Racing in his favoured events _ the 50 metre and 100m freestyle and butterfly, and the 200m individual medley _ Jacob is keen to show his competition that he is up to the challenge.

He has done the majority of his training alone and will use this as encouragement and motivation come race day.

Olympic stars including James Magnussen and Alicia Coutts will be competing at the championships, as the multi-class events are intertwined with those of the able-bodied competitors.

Jacob begins his campaign this Saturday and is keen to see how he matches up against some of the world's best.

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Jacob ready to take on nation's best