Andrew Fowler and Jamila Sanmoogan are heading to the Tokyo Olympic Games where they will represent the Golden Arrowhead.
This is according to Guyana Amateur Swimming Association President, Dwayne Scott who confirmed the information with this publication yesterday.
“GASA selected Andrew Fowler and Jamila Sanmoogan to represent Guyana at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics swimming,” Scott related while revealing, “Andrew will be doing the 100m freestyle and Jamila will be doing the 50m freestyle.”
The 24-year-old Sanmoogan is no stranger to the big stage, having represented Guyana at the event when it was hosted in Rio, Brazil back in 2016 while the 25-year-old Fowler will make his debut at the event but has competed at the World Championships from 2017-2019.
Scott detailed the qualification process through which both athletes secured their places.
“The FINA [Fédération Internationale De Natation] universality process asks that as athletes swim and better their times they receive points accumulation and based on that, based on the various events they sanction and the points they receive at the end of the process, ideally the athlete with the most points would be the one they classify as the universality athlete selected,” he stated.
Scott admitted that Leon Seaton was also in contention but due to Fowler’s dominance in Florida recently he solidified his position.
“Andrew was selected in front of Leon Seaton based on the FINA points system. Both Andrew and Leon were going up to swim the 100m freestyle and based on the points accumulated over various events, Andrew would have accumulated the most points which allow him to be the number one candidate…they would have already identified Andrew last year but what they asked us to do was to reassess what was going on, reassess the current athletes and pick the one that was at the time the most outstanding performer,” Scott explained.
He added, “Over the period Leon has continuously shown improvement but at the UANA meet in Florida two weeks ago, Andrew would have demonstrated his dominance in the event which is the 100m free which by and large would have allowed him to be the athlete of choice for the Olympics.”
According to Scott, Fowler will next attend another UANA championship on May 20 in Puerto Rico with Sanmoogan set to work on her conditioning and tapering at home as both seek to become competition ready in time for the July 23-August 8 Games.
