Following judoka Raul Lall’s second round exit from the individual competition of the Summer Olympics as the 2012 London Olympic Games are called another Guyanese, swimmer Niall Roberts will be in action today as this country seeks to add to its lone medal – a bronze – won by boxer Michael Parris in 1980.
Just 21, Roberts can be considered an experienced swimmer.
This will be his second Olympic Games following his debut performance four years ago at the Beijing, China, 2008 Games.
He also took part in the FINA World Championships last year in Shanghai, China in July and represented Guyana at the Pan American Games in Mexico last September.
However, despite the many opportunities Roberts has been unable to make the qualifying time for this year’s Olympics and was the beneficiary of a Universality spot.
“It would have been a lot better to have qualified for the Olympics, to have that sense of being on par with the big names that will be there,” he told Stabroek Sport in a previous interview.
“However I don’t let it get me down, because it’s my performance that got me the wild card in the first place. If I hadn’t done well at the World Games [FINA Championships] I wouldn’t be given the opportunity. I do see myself one day qualifying but that’s going to take a lot of work and time in the pool which may be getting less as I grow older. I don’t know how long I’ll still be in the sport. Things are different for us here [in Guyana]. I don’t get paid to swim, and soon I’ll have to stop altogether when I start working a 9-5. Right now I’m an instructor at the Swim Academy and the times there work for me, but I won’t be doing that all my life. I would love to go pro. But it’s just not possible in Guyana,” he had added.
He goes into today’s 100m freestyle event with a personal best time of 54.99s and will come up against the likes of Australian James Magnussen, the favourite who has clocked a world lading time of 47.10s at the Australia Olympic trials.
Magnussen is in heat number eight along with Canada’s Brent Hayden whose entry time is 47.95.
Another Australian, James Roberts has swum 47.63 seconds while the world record holder is a Brazilian by the name of Cesar Cielo who is in heat 6 with a seed time of 47.84s.
Roberts will swim in heat two out of lane 5. He has the second fastest time of the group with Grenada’s Esau Simpson’s 53.85 the fastest entry time.
Unlike Beijing when Roberts was only 17 and whose coach Stephanie Fraser had admitted to the media upon her return that Roberts was nervous, there should be no such feelings this time.
Fraser had told the media that Roberts had dived in too deeply in the 50m event in Beijing. Despite that, he did manage to shave 24th of a second off his normal time clocking 25:13 for the event compared to his previous best of 25:37s.
Guyana’s other swimmer Britany van Lange will be in action tomorrow morning.
