Kenyan swimmer Ridhwan faces reality check at Paris Olympics
By Michael Kirwa |
Ridhwan qualified for the Olympics through universality, raising the hopes of Kenyan swimmers after Kenya Aquatics faced a ban. He proudly holds the national record for the 400m freestyle.
Mohamed Abubakar Ridhwan, a swimmer from Mombasa, lost his chance to advance to the finals of the 400-meter freestyle swimming competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games earlier today.
37 swimmers competed in the competition, divided into five groups for the heats. Ridhwan was competing in Heat One, which had four other competitors drawn from Guyana, Costa Rica, Morocco, and North Macedonia. The other heats had eight swimmers.
Per the competition format, the eight fastest swimmers in terms of time, regardless of their finishing position in their respective heats, qualified for the final.
It is this criteria for qualifying for the final that revealed the strides Kenya’s 23-year-old swimmer has to make before being considered one of the best in his discipline.
Abubakar finished fourth in his heat, stopping the clock at 4 minutes, 5.14 seconds. Moroccan Ilias el Fallaki won that heat with a time of 4 minutes, 1.59 seconds. Raekwon Noel of Guyana (4:02.29) and Alberto Vega of Costa Rica (4:03.14) were second and third, respectively.
Ridhwan’s time was 19 seconds slower than that of the fastest swimmer, the German Lukas Martens, who won Heat 5 with a time of 3 minutes, 44.13 seconds.
That clearly indicates that Ridhwan still has a significant amount of catching up to do. His time was only good enough for 36th place overall, with North Macedonian Nikola Guretanovik (4:05.38) being the only swimmer who was slower than him.
Jason Dunford, in 2008 and 2012, remains the only Kenyan swimmer to progress beyond the heats at the Olympic Games. In 2008, he reached the final in the 100-metre butterfly, where he finished fifth before suffering elimination in the same event at the 2012 London Olympic Games.
Kenya’s hope of seeing another performance like that of Jason Dunford now lies with 24-year-old Maria Bruhlehner, who will be competing in the women’s 50-metre freestyle.
Bruhlehner still has one week to prepare for her competition, as the women’s 50-metre freestyle does not start until Saturday, August 3, when the heats and semifinals of the event will take place. The final will take place on Sunday, August 4.
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