Emily Seebohm's goal for the Commonwealth Games.

Emily is an Uncle Tobys ambassador.

2013. Three silver medals at the FINA World Championships in Barcelona.

2012. Two silver medals and a gold medal at the London Olympics.

2010. Eight medals – three of them gold – at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

2008. A gold medal at the Beijing Olympics.

The above is just a brief timeline of some of the achievements of 22-year-old Emily Seebohm, one of our most talented Australian swimmers.

And today, she’s leaving for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.

It’s a busy schedule for Seebohm in Glasgow. She swims in backstroke, freestyle, butterfly and relay events, and has been signed up to compete in the 50 metre, 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke, as well as the 200 individual medley and the 4x100t medley relay.

If her last Commonwealth Games sweep is anything to go by, Seebohm’s bound to do well at the 2014 Games. She’s already pegged by the experts to take out the gold in the 100m backstroke, at the very least.

After all, this is a girl who broke her first world record at the age of 14 and her first Olympic medal at the age of 16, when she was, incidentally, the youngest member of the Australia swim team.

But there’s a lot of hard work involved behind the scenes of all those medals. Seebohm started training intensively at the age of ten, and now does up to nine swimming pool sessions per week, as well as dry-land training sessions. She’s battled through sickness – at the 2011 National Championships, she collapsed from swine flu symptoms after completing the 100m backstroke.

Emily at the Brisbane Olympic Homecoming Parade.

She’s also battled intense pressure – at the 2012 London Games, Seebohm ended up in tears after missing out on the gold medal in the 100m backstroke. At the time, she explained that she was going through an (understandably) intensely emotional time and was worried about disappointing her family.

“I know I haven’t let anyone down but I think I let a little bit of myself down,” Emily said. “The emotions are really high and there is just so much pressure on the Olympics and you put so much pressure on yourself.”

Before she got on her flight to Scotland, I had a quick chat to Seebohm to ask her about her life and the Commonwealth Games. Here’s what she had to say.

On starting swimming lessons as a baby:

On what exactly is so great about swimming:

On the pressure that Australians put on swimmers to do well in their events:

On coming down with Swine Flu in 2011:

On what an average day looks like:

On the Commonwealth Games:

On her own personal goal for the Commonwealth Games:

And in other sports news from the week …

– The International Rugby Board has announced that the qualifying tournament for the IRB Women’s Sevens World Series 14/15 will take place in September, in Hong Kong. 12 different countries, including Japan, China, Fiji and Argentina are looking to qualify in the series, and join the core teams, of which Australia is one.

– 20-year-old Brittany Hepburn has become the first female baseballer to play first-grade men’s baseball in Newcastle. This is a huge step for her, considering that there are minimal other women who play in the top levels of men’s team competitions in the region. When asked about the achievement, Hepburn said: “It’s awesome that I’ll be the first female, but I reckon every girl that plays with the boys, whatever the grade, deserves credit.”

– Aussie netballer Liz Ellis has called for an ANZ Championship franchise in Canberra. Having run netball clinics for 20 years, Ellis said that the demand for them in Canberra is strong, and believes that Canberra is big enough to have their own senior netball team.

Have you seen anything in the sporting world that you’d like to talk about?

The qualifying tournament for the IRB Women’s Sevens World Series 2014-15 will take place on September 12-13 in Hong Kong, the International Rugby Board has announced. With four places up for grabs in next season’s series, this 12-team qualifying tournament looks set to be extremely competitive with Japan, China, South Africa, Kenya, Brazil, Fiji, Mexico, Hong Kong, France, Netherlands, Portugal and Argentina all looking for a place at the top table. – See more at: http://ur7s.com/news/irb-announce-qualifier-for-womens-world-rugby-sevens-series-to-take-place-in-hong-kong-in-september?utm_content=bufferbb14c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#sthash.N49tetKM.dpuf

Sport on Saturdays: She broke her first world record at 14 & won her first Olympic medal at 16.