There can’t be many better ways to spend your birthday than by celebrating it with your sibling in an Olympic Village, but that is exactly what Emma Harvey did.

Harvey, who arrived in Paris just a couple of days earlier with her brother, Jack, turned 23 on July 23 and the day is set to mark the beginning of a fantastic year.

“It’s so cool and for me it was even cooler as it was my so-called golden birthday,” Harvey said.

“If you believe all that stuff it’s supposed to be the best year of your life and I have to say day one and day two started really well, so if I can stay with that momentum it will be a great year.”

All things considered, a birthday is probably one of the lesser distractions at the Olympic Village, with superstar athletes lurking around every corner and plenty of places to explore, and Harvey has been making the most of any down time.

“The village is amazing,” she said. “When I first walked in it was kind of overwhelming but now I’ve been here for a few days it’s awesome and there is so much to do, so many areas to explore and there are so many amazing athletes just walking around.

“Maybe the atmosphere will change when everything has started but it’s very friendly and relaxed. I saw Carlos Álcaraz and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is staying opposite from us, which is pretty cool.”

With all that going on it might be easy to forget that the biggest race of your young life is on the horizon but Harvey is resisting any temptation to take her eyes off the big Olympic prize.

“There are a lot of distractions around but I don’t know if the distractions will impede your performance,” Harvey said.

“A lot of it is just walking to the dining hall, seeing a lot of cool people and trading pins, so it doesn’t take away from performance too much, but you’re always in two minds. On one hand you want to go and walk the whole length of the village to explore three times over, which is obviously not ideal for your performance, but thankfully we are going to be here for two weeks after.

“I would maybe feel differently if we were going to be leaving straight after competing but we still have a lot of time to enjoy it.”

By we, Harvey is talking about sharing her Olympic experience with her brother, and the pair are undoubtedly close, but they have had to learn to focus on themselves and not waste energy worrying about the performances of the other half of the swimming sibling combination.

“A year ago, I would have said yes in that we got so emotionally invested in each other’s performances but over the last year we have learned to separate,” Harvey said

“During qualifying, we both went to London and I didn’t qualify the night before Jack did. I was massively disappointed, but that shows we can be sad for each other or happy for each other but we also know how to compartmentalise, turn our brains off and refocus on ourselves when it is time to go.

“As a sibling you probably feel more for the other person but we’ve really prepared for this and hopefully if all goes well then it will just be shared happiness.”

Harvey left it late to seal her spot in the Olympics and she feels the pressure involved in chasing the qualifying time will stand her in good stead when the nerves kick in ahead of heat four of the 100 metres backstroke on Monday morning (6.31am Bermuda time).

“I’ve made a semi-final at the World Championships and in the last year I have had so many great experiences where I’ve been able to get out on the world stage, but there is no situation that is more stressful than needing to qualify.

“I pretty much had only two chances left when I qualified and I knew it was now or possibly never, so if I can handle that I can handle almost anything.

“While going through it wasn’t the most pleasant it has given me a lot of confidence that I know what to tell myself when I am standing behind those blocks and I know how to perform, whereas a year ago I had never dealt with that pressure before.”

Since qualifying Harvey says her training has gone well and she is hopeful that she might be able to sneak a second swim if her heat goes well

“I am really hoping for a great performance next week,” she said.

“It would be amazing to set a PB and get a national record at the Olympics and it’s so hard to predict what it’s going to take to get to a semi-final.

“That would obviously be the upper end and if I have an amazing swim I definitely think that’s possible, but of course it also depends on what other people will do.

“I don’t necessarily want to set that as my goal per se as I could swim amazing but everyone else could swim equally amazing and I would end up still disappointed even though I had a great performance, so all I am going to do is go out there and try my very best.

“If that gets me a second swim, that’s awesome, but if I fall short, that’s ok too. This is my first Olympics and I just want to go out there, perform my best and set myself up for the future.”