2008 has been good to Drew Christensen, but the Moscrop Secondary senior is hoping it gets even better.

Christensen left last Friday for a week's training in Japan before eventually embarking on the swim meet of his life at the Paralympic Games in Beijing Sept. 6 to 17.

A Games guy: Hyack Swim Club's Drew Christensen will be one of the buisest swimmers at the Paralympic Games, competing in six of the seven long-course events in the swimmer with a disability S8 classification in Beijing next week. Jason Lang/THE RECORD

The 17-year-old swimmer with a disability is scheduled to swim in six of the seven S8 (minimally disabled swim) races, including his best events, the 100-metre butterfly and the 200-m individual medley.

Christensen is the world record holder in the 400-m short course IM and currently holds national long-course marks in 10 separate disciplines.

Seven of those new records were set this year. Four of them - the 200-m IM, 100-m fly, 100-m backstroke and 400-m freestyle - are Paralympic events.

"I think if I swim everything that I can possibly do, I should be able to get onto the podium, at least I hope I do. I'm only a couple of seconds off that (world rankings)," Christensen said. "I'm probably looking more towards 2012 for medals. But it would be a nice surprise."

What isn't a surprise is that Christensen is now at this stage of his swimming career.

Three years ago, Christensen won two silver and two bronze medals at the B.C. Summer Games and subsequently set himself a goal for the upcoming Paralympics.

"I realized I could do more. The Paralympics were three years away. That was pretty much when I started getting really into it."

That meant going on a weight program, dryland running and training in the pool nine times a week, including Friday nights, Saturday mornings and Sunday.

That regime played havoc with his social life. "That's the hardest thing to do," he said.

At the International Paralympic Committee world championships in South Africa in 2006, Christensen swam in eight events, making the finals in the 100-m fly.

Last year at the Para Pan Am Games in Brazil, he broke the Canadian record in the 400-m free with a time of 5:11.4.

But it wasn't the record that encouraged him. It was how he bounced back from a stomach bug on the first day to post two solid swim times in his two specialty strokes.

At the Pan Ams, Christensen came away with three gold and one silver medal, as well as a sixth-place finish in a near-personal best time of 1:12.4 on the day after his bout of sickness.

This season's training schedule, from September to now, has also had its ups and downs.

In October, he had his appendix removed. A month later, Christensen returned from a big meet in the Eastern United States with another personal best and a need for further inspiration.

"I wasn't into (swimming). I took time off. Training camp felt like I didn't want to be there," Christensen said.

But Christensen's coach at the Hyack Swim Club, Mark Bottrill, said the young teen "picked up his boots and kept going. He's learned."

"His training for the most part is really solid. He is at the peak end of his group," said Bottrill. "He's really been consistent. ... You know that whatever he's been doing today, will evolve down the line."

The proof has been a spectacular spring, where Christensen set two new national marks at the Canadian swim trials in Montreal and four more at the huge German Open meet in Berlin, leading up to the Games.

"It was some of my best training," said Christensen. "I had a huge best time in the 200-m IM, taking a five-second drop in Montreal at the trials, the biggest training drop in three years." He also lopped a full two seconds off his time in the fly.

"You just have to work as hard as you possibly can," he added. "If ... they beat you, they beat you and there's nothing you can do."

But Bottrill said Christensen is taking inspiration from the wealth of individual stories coming out of the Olympic Games.

"That's the motivation right now and the power of Olympic-style sports," said Bottrill. "Right now, you have everything in stories you can relate to and draw inspiration from. What's important is Drew is able to live that drama now. He is going to go out and do it to the world."