Monday, 6 August 2012

MEET ADZO KPOSSI, THE YOUNGEST COMPETITOR AT THE LONDON OLYMPICS

A lot of media carried the story of British teen Danielle Alakija as the youngest Olympian at the London 2012. Danielle, 16, is representing Fiji at the Olympics but she is of Nigerian descent so we all were really proud of her. Alas, she is not the youngest athlete at the the London games, that honor goes to 13 year old Togolese Adzo Kpossi.
Adzo is the youngest competitor at the Olympics and her dream is to beat her personal best of 44.6 seconds in the 50metre freestyle swimming event. Her participation at
the games was no easy ride, the teenager lacks the basic equipment to train for her sport and due to the unavailability of public swimming pools, she has to use a hotel swimming pool 12 kilometres from her family home to train. According to her dad, Kwame Kpossi who does double duty as her coach ''it costs us a lot of money. every three days, I have to fill up the car but the Togolese Olympic committee gives us a fixed amount towards the petrol.
The teenager did not meet the minimum requirement to compete at the Olympics but was given a wild card to compete. Every national Olympic committee is allowed a place in athletics and swimming, regardless of whether their athletes meet the qualifying time.
Adzo was in the heat of the 50metre freestyle on Friday, she placed second to last but fulfilled her dream of beating her personal best of 44.6 seconds. She did it in 37.55 seconds.

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