Thirteen-year-old double gold medalist at the recently concluded Goodwill Swimming meet, Athalcy Hunte has set her sights on representing Guyana at the Olympics in the future.
Stabroek Sport sat down with the Queen’s College student who recalled her experience in her second outing representing Guyana.
“It was kind of scary at first because most of the other countries have swimmers who are bigger in size than me as you can see I am very skinny but I tried my best to focus on winning and that’s what kept me going,” she said.
Hunte returned two gold medals and three bronze from the event and has been tipped as one of the bright up-and-coming stars in the sport.
Based on her performances, Hunte said she is encouraged to go on to greater things, positing that she would like to one day represent Guyana at the Olympics but realistically has set her sights on making the Pan American Games, Commonwealth Games and firstly CARIFTA.
Hunte had qualified for CARIFTA last year but opted not to take part due to personal reasons and she is confident she can do it again.
This comes on the back of Paul Mahaica, who was the swimming coach for Guyana during the recent Pan Am games saying that more must be done to keep swimmers in the sport by identifying talent early and providing them with the chance to develop their skills.
The aquatic star from Dorado swim Club explained that her Goodwill participation was significant to her.
“I would take that my confidence has been boosted a lot and I am grateful that I was given the chance to express myself and show what I can do,” she said.
The swimmer opined that the only disappointment she noticed was the need to have all the members of team Guyana supporting each other rather than trying to pull each other down.
“At local meets we should be competing to better our timings and increase our performance and cheer on each other but not pull one and other down.”
She pointed out that for her, it is quite difficult to study and swim because “they [Guyana] doesn’t facilitate school and sports with training in the morning and school right after you don’t get any rest per se.”
Nevertheless, she encouraged others who are facing similar difficulties to create a time table since time management is very important.
