He departed for Dublin on Monday with the Irish swimming squad, to embark on the most important two months of his career to date.

After a weekend break at his Drumahoe home, Ryan is due to take part in the World Student Games in Belgrade, between today (July 1) and July 12 - before heading to Rome for the World Swimming Championships in early August.

The talented swimmer, who is currently resident at the University of Tennessee, where he holds a scholarship, had not been home since last December. At that point he had turned out at the Ulster Championships for the City of Derry Swimming club and set both Ulster and Irish records for the 400m Freestyle at that event.

However, the ante has now been well and truly upped as the primary objective for Ryan on his trips to Serbia and Rome is to hit the qualification times for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Speaking to the Sentinel prior to leaving for Belgrade, Ryan said: "One reason I am looking forward to the World Student Games is that the athletes will be living in a village similar to the setup at the Olympics and that will be a great experience.

"While the objective is to hit the Olympic qualification times, I will get as close as possible at the World Student Games and then hope to hit them at the world Championships in Rome."

One definite benefit Ryan will take to both meetings will be the physical improvements he has made during his first real introduction to long course training at the University of Tennessee.

"This involved serious work on my muscle base and has been amazing. We have been doing six days of swimming sessions, twice a day, and one day of dry land work, which involves weight training and so on," he said.

The Londonderry man's pedigree has been evident for quite a while now and his burgeoning reputation received a mighty boost back in March this year when he out-swam some of the best competitors in the world to lift two bronze medals at a USA Grand Prix meeting in Austin, Texas. He also managed to set three new Irish Senior records in the process.

It was also at that meeting that he achieved the qualification times for next month's World Championships as well as for next year's Commonwealth Games in India.

Ryan said: "I want to compete in as many events as possible at the Olympics and that means attempting qualification for the 100m, 200m and 400m Freestyle events.

"Although the qualification times for the London games have not yet been announced it is expected that they will be a second faster than those at Beijing."

Whilst to most this prospect would be daunting, both Ryan and his supporters are confident of achieving these targets.

Coach at City of Derry, Carmel Gorman said: "Ryan has only been training in Tennessee for about a year and he is obviously relishing the whole experience of training and competing with the best in the world.

"This is what he needed to raise his performance to world class level and we in the City of Derry Swim Club are delighted for him."