“I wanted to go but wasn’t sure I’d be able to because I’d be too young”, said the 5’1″ athlete, who gets up at 4am every day to train.
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“It’s one of those things you take up as a child and drop off later, but I liked it!” she said with a giggle.
Singh, who is being coached by phone from London where she now lives after leaving Nepal as a toddler, was nearly thrown off her stroke by a wardrobe crisis.
Gaurkia is not new to the Olympics world as she broke Nepal’s drought of individual medal at global event, claiming one silver and three bronze medals during the 12th South Asian Games in Assam and Guwahati in India earlier this year.
She’s not well-known yet-The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Singh was stopped by security while trying to enter the Olympic pool for practice-but her Olympic debut will surely change that.
Rio de Janeiro (dpa) – Teenagers fretting over what to wear is nothing new – but Nepal’s 13-year-old Gaurika Singh had legitimate cause for concern Sunday when she tore her swimsuit just before she was due to swim in the Olympic Games.
“So I had to change to a different suit”.
There she was, preparing to compete in the Nepalese national swimming championship with her family in Kathmandu, when she was forced to take shelter under a table in a five-storey office building fearing for her life.
Unable to bring her regular coach, Rhys Gormley, to Rio, she had to confer with him by mobile phone on how to deal with the mishap.
A year ago she was in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, on the fifth floor of a building, and was forced to shelter under a table when the Himalayan country was hit by a 7.8-magnitude natural disaster that killed 9,000 people.
But Singh says she travels in a pretty accomplished crowd. It was just one big blur with everything shaking. “It was just fantastic to look up and see my time”. Earlier this year at the South Asian Games, she won the bronze medal for her country in the women’s 200 meters backstroke.
“My dad’s friend originally had a charity to build schools that the quake destroyed”, said Singh. Mum thought it would be too traumatic and I didn’t want to see people dying.
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As the intrepid Singh explained after winning her race, she has also had the shock of seeing one of her swimming idols, Australia’s Mitch Larkin, in person in Rio: “When I was training here, Mitch was in the lane next to me”. “I tried to speak to him but nothing came out of my mouth”.
