Kimberley, Saturday - Karen Muir, the shy, 12-year-old wonder-girl of South African sport, will spend this weekend catching up on her homework and will not swim for at least five weeks.

"Exams are three weeks away and I have missed school for almost three months," Karen, the youngest world-record-holder in the history of sport, told me. "Now all I want to do is to forget all the fuss and get back to my schoolwork."

A Std V pupil at Diamantveld Laërskool, Kimberley, the solemn and rather gawky young swimmer received a royal welcome in both Johannesburg and her home town this week. She is glad that her "ordeal" is over but she now faces another - the end-of-term examinations.

"It has been a bit too much and I still cannot really believe that I am holder of the world record," she said. "It's like some thing out of a fairy tale. Everyone has been very kind and wonderful but I am glad that the fuss is finished."

The "fuss" had been too much for Karen. That was why she had broken down and wept so much since returning home, her mother, Yvette, told me.

"People seem to think that my daughter is a freak, but she's nothing of the sort. She is just an ordinary girl who tries her best at everything she does. In Blackpool her best was better than anyone else's."

Karen's ordeal began last week when, after her record-breaking swim in the girls' 110 yards backstroke race, she had to face a battalion of reporters from the British press.

When the aircraft bringing her home touched down at Jan Smuts Airport on Thursday afternoon, she had to run a similar gauntlet.

As she stepped from the aircraft she burst into tears and threw herself into the arms of her father, Dr R Muir, who, with her mother and her coach, Frank Gray, had flown from Kimberley to meet her.

Throughout the interviews in the VIP lounge at Jan Smuts Karen gazed uncomfortably at her shoes.