FOR Britain’s Olympians, the end of a four-year Games cycle inevitably leads to a reassessment of priorities and ambitions. Is it worth committing four more years of dedication and sacrifice to the pursuit of another Olympic appearance, this time in Tokyo in 2020, or has the time come to accept that alternative non-sporting avenues have to be explored?

Teesside swimmer Aimee Willmott has been through that thought process, and concluded she is not quite sure. Having competed in her second Olympics in Rio last summer, finishing seventh in the final of the 400m Individual Medley, the former Middlesbrough ASC star would dearly love to complete a hat-trick of Games appearances in Tokyo. But as she prepares to turn 23 in February, she knows time will not stand still in a sport where youth is a virtue.

Having returned to training at her full-time base at the London Aquatic Centre, she is committed to attempting to make the British team for this year’s World Championships and the England squad for next year’s Commonwealth Games on Australia’s Gold Coast. Beyond that, though, it remains to be seen how long her career continues.

“When I was younger, I probably had a whole four years mapped out for me,” said Willmott, who has already been named as a Team England ambassador for the 2018 Commonwealth Games. “But now, I’m at a position where I’m just taking each year as it comes.

“It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the Olympics are the only things that matter, and then planning the rest of your life around that. But if you do that, you miss out on a load of other competitions that are important and exciting in their own right.

“There’s a World Championships this year, and my main focus at the moment is on making sure I’m in good shape for the trails in April to make sure I get on that team. Then next year, it’s the Commonwealth Games in Australia. I had a fantastic time in Glasgow, and I can’t wait to experience that again because it’s a totally different vibe to the Olympics.

“After that? We’ll see. The next Olympics are always there in the back of your mind somewhere, but I don’t want them to dominate everything.

“Let’s see how I’m feeling in a couple of years’ time. If I’m still swimming well, and I’m still in love with the sport, I’ll definitely continue. But it’s a fair way in the future and if I’m going to go on to Tokyo, it’ll be because I want to do it for myself, not because I feel like I have to do it for other people. I’m a bit older now, and I think I’m allowed to think about myself a bit more.”

Now that the dust has settled on Rio, Willmott is able to look back with considerable fondness on a Games that saw the British swimming team exceed expectations. After the disappointments of London 2012, Adam Peaty’s thrilling gold medal got the ball rolling, and Britain’s swimmers finished the Games with their biggest Olympic medal haul since 1984.

On a personal level, Willmott is delighted to have made the 400IM final, having narrowly missed out in London, but disappointed that her performance in the final was almost a second slower than her time in the heats, which saw her qualify in fifth position.

“When I look back, I have to be happy with how I did,” she said. “I made the final, and that was always the main ambition. At the end of the day, you always want more. I’m sure if I’d won a bronze medal, I would have wanted gold or silver.

“It would have been nice to have swum faster than I did in the heat, and maybe finished fifth or sixth in the final, but they were the two fastest swims in a day I’ve ever done. I have to be pleased with that.”

Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu broke the world record as she won the 400IM final in Rio, and with Willmott finishing almost nine seconds behind her, the gap to the world’s best is considerable.

The gap to Mireia Belmonte, who won the bronze medal, however, was less than three seconds, and there is no reason why that cannot be closed in the next few years.

“If you look at the times of the Olympic finals in the last 16 years, then the speed at which things have moved on is incredible,” said Willmott, who is sponsored by Funkita swimwear. “The gold medal position has moved on loads, but if you look at what would have won a bronze medal in Rio, that’s definitely achievable.

“It’s just a case of keeping on chipping away at things, and trying to squeeze out a hundredth of a second here and a tenth of a second there. If you can do that, you’ll carry on improving.”

Willmott will return to competitive action in Amiens next month, before lining up as part of the British team for an international meeting in Luxembourg. The British Championships follow shortly after that, with the World Championships taking place in Hungary in July.

“It should be a good year,” said Willmott. “I started back training in September, and after another couple of weeks, I’ll really start building things up again. I still enjoy the training, and I still get excited about the thought of competing at something like the World Championships. I’ve been doing this for a fair while now, but that excitement doesn’t go away.”