David ‘Tolu’ Young and Samuel Yalimaiwai open the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore for Fiji. Tolu, a returning world’s competitor from Budapest’s short course meet last year and Samuel’s debut at a World Championships. Both swimmers were on great form and took home times to be proud of.
Up first was Tolu, this 20‑year‑old has quickly become one of Fiji’s most recognisable sprint swimmers. Following impressive medal wins last month at the Pacific Mini Games in Palau, Tolu was humble in his account of his preparation going into this event. Despite his reserved preparation for this particular discipline, opting to prioritise focus on his freestyle swim later this week, he took home an impressive time of 24.11 in the Men’s 50m Butterfly. With a focus on success he switched up his training style this summer in order to prepare for the long course competition and this has paid off. Just short of his personal best achieved earlier this year at the TYR Pro Swim Series in Fort Lauderdale, USA, Tolu was not perturbed by his time and focussed on the joy of the race ‘I was fairly close to my PB so I can’t complain too much. It was fun’.
Following an impressive qualifying time, Tolu is competing in heat 7, lane 3. As he stepped up to the blocks he recalls there were “definitely little bit of nerves going in but wasn’t too bad I just try to tell myself to have fun and yeah that’s the thing I executed well” With a focus on enjoying the race and positive attitude he entered the pool with an outstanding reaction time of 0.60, one of the fastest entries into the pool for his event.
Tolu will now build on today’s performance with two more high-intensity races, he prepares for his upcoming freestyle events, races he has high hopes for. He hopes to achieve a new PB, aiming to break 22 seconds in the Men’s 50m Freestyle.
Following Tolu’s success, it was a proud moment for Team Fiji as 22‑year‑old Samuel made his debut at the World Aquatics Swimming Championships, starting with the Men’s 100m Breaststroke. Samuel has recently competed at the Pacific Mini Games in Palau, but this marks his first long course World Championship.
As Samuel left the blocks he was plagued with cramp, this meant his race didn’t quite go to plan. He was fast into the water with a reaction time of 0.69 but felt he had a slow start owing to the cramp. In spite of this pain he still went on to achieve an incredible time and took home a personal best time of 1:06.37, shaving time off his previous best achieved earlier this year at the Fiji Open National Championships.
With this outstanding debut performance from Samuel it was clear to see he didn’t let the pressure, bright lights or loud crowd of such a big stage intimidate him “this is my first world, a lot of nerves but I think once you hit the water it sort of goes away so I think it feels amazing, first time just really glad to be here swimming amongst some of the best in the world so I’m really grateful”.
Following the Pacific Mini Games last month there was a rapid turn around in training technique required, Samuel detailed the shift from short course to long course training and the increased fitness required for this competition. Samuel will take this dedication to training into his upcoming race. He’ll be back in action on day three in the 50m Breaststroke, with high hopes for this shorter distance, he’s aiming high for a big personal best and national record. Samuel is certainly ready to take on the sprint event with newfound experience for Team Fiji.
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Written by The Reporters’ Academy