Siphiwe Baleka broke Ivy League barriers as a swimmer—then dropped the sport to drive semis. Now he’s back in the pool, trying to make the Tokyo Olympics.
THE FOLLOWING WRITTEN CONTENT BY JON WERTHEIM
It’s a snapshot that’s being replicated all over the world. Athletes at the height of their physical powers, training for the next Olympics. By turns, they are imbued with both a sense of anticipation and a sense of uncertainty. The goal is to stay conditioned and sharp, without peaking too soon.
Again and again they’ve been assured that the Tokyo Games, delayed for 2020, will be staged next summer. But they’ve also been warned that these Games will be like no other, and, as the cliché goes, to “expect the unexpected.” Likely, there will be no fans in the stands. Maybe there will be no athletes’ village. Maybe the format for the competition will be altered.
In these ways, Siphiwe Baleka is like nearly all his fellow Olympic aspirants. A swimmer, he usually arrives for training early, 4:45 a.m. on this day; other times he arrives late at night. But each time he jumps into the pool and begins an hour’s worth of laps, his arms and legs working in synchronicity, his motion at once economical and extravagant. He is trying to stay in shape and bend time, shaving down his personal best. He is also cautious of rationing his energies, saving what he calls “my best self” for when he enters the pool in Tokyo the last week in July, 2021.
The comparisons, though, between this Olympic hopeful and thousands of others worldwide, effectively end there. For one, he represents the country of Guinea-Bissau, a West African republic with a population of less than two million, its Olympic profile so modest that it has never sent a delegation of more than five athletes to the Games and has never won a medal of any kind. Without the benefit of a federation to help fund his training, he has to work full-time, which, until recently, the former All–Ivy League swimmer did by driving an 18-wheeler.
And there’s this: the guy knocking off all those early morning laps in the pool? This upcoming April, months before the Opening Ceremony in Tokyo, he will turn 50 years old. Read more from Sports Illustrated.
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Not new, but interesting: centenarian athletes:
