A BOLTON teenager has returned to the UK with an impressive medal haul after competing in the World Transplant Games in Argentina.

Ayesha Brookes collected three gold medals in table tennis and the women’s 100m and 4x400m relay to go with three silvers in the 100m and 50m freestyle and 50m breast stroke.

The 17-year-old, of Albert Road, Heaton, qualified for the world event after impressing coaches at the UK games in Newcastle earlier this year — and said she had enjoyed her first taste of the world stage.

“It was a really good experience,” she said.

“I didn’t really want to come home. You meet so many amazing people and you get to hear their stories and it’s so good being there with the British team. I’ve been asked to compete before but I’ve been to unwell.”

The star athlete has been competing since undergoing a kidney transplant at the age of seven.

Ayesha said she hoped competing in the games, which took place in Bolton last year, would show youngsters in a similar situation that they could carry on as normal after undergoing an operation while helping raise money for hospitals and charities that deal with transplants.

She said: “I was quite into dancing and swimming but then I was too unwell and after the transplant I wanted to do more to prove what can happen after a transplant. I was quite unwell for a while and was on dialysis for two years before I got the call.

“I was on a restricted diet and I had to stop dancing. I have a twin brother and he was able to go out with friends and do the normal seven-year-old things that I couldn’t do.

“I hope this will raise awareness because not a lot of people really understand what having a transplant is like or what it’s like being so ill beforehand and it will raise awareness that other children like me can still do things after having an operation.”