''It's a bit exciting being compared to [Thorpe and Trickett] but they're quite amazing so I don't know about that,'' Kukla said.

''I just try to ignore it, focus on myself and not think about that kind of stuff.''

The comparisons may be premature but are hard to ignore with Kukla, 14, posting faster times than Trickett did at the same age.

The Brisbane swim kid's personal best for 50m freestyle is 25.30, while her best time over 100m is 55.20.

She won nine gold medals at the Australian Age Swimming Championships in Sydney in April and travelled to France with the Queensland team to make her senior international debut in June.

''It was good to learn how to step up and race after doing that amount of travel,'' Kukla said. ''It was quite hard but it was good to see the fastest sprinters in the world there, they were all very big and muscly.''

The Brisbane junior joined Australia's fastest female sprinters at the Australian Institute of Sport yesterday for a two-day sprint relay camp. The group of 13 swimmers, including Beijing Olympians Sally Foster and Emily Seebohm, joined seven coaches for four training sessions.

Swimming Australia head coach Alan Thompson said the camp was designed to work towards the women's 4x100m freestyle relay at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

For more, pick up a copy of today's Canberra Times