Jakarta: Having survived a killer earthquake and an embarrassing wardrobe glitch at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Nepali swimmer Gaurika Singh is not your typical 15-year-old.
The bubbly schoolgirl made waves as the youngest athlete at the Olympics but is happy to shed that tag and reveals that she has come out of her shell since her baby-faced appearance in Brazil.
“A lot of my friends say I’m really loud, which is fair enough because I am,” Gaurika told this agency here, Monday. “I sometimes think in my head ‘oh just shut up, Gaurika – you’re so annoying!’ But then I’m a very social person.”
Gaurika, who left Nepal as a toddler to move to London, got into a flap in Rio when she tore her swimsuit before her 100m backstroke heat before slipping on a new costume and winning the race. Fast forward two years and Gaurika is strolling around the Asian Games pool here like a seasoned pro. She is a whopping six years older than Indonesian skateboarder Aliqqa Novvery, who at nine is the youngest athlete at the Games.
Her destiny could have taken a tragic turn three years ago, however, after getting caught on the top floor of a five-storey building in Kathmandu when a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck, forcing her to dive under a table for shelter.
The killer quake claimed 9,000 lives but has done nothing to keep Gaurika away from her native country. “It’s kind of a blur,” she said of that ordeal after swimming the 100m freestyle heats. My mum was with me but it was still really scary. I was just lucky.
“But I still go to Nepal twice a year – not living there helps me appreciate it more. I love swimming for my country,” added the pint-sized athlete. Gaurika trains with her national team every summer but practices in Britain the rest of the time.
