Swimmer Niyomugabo gets Olympic slot

SWIMMER Jackson Niyomugabo is the seventh Rwandan athlete to get the nod to compete in the London Olympic Games scheduled to start July 27. Team Rwanda’s Chef de Mission Serge Mwambali confirmed to Times Sport yesterday that Niyomugabo will compete in the London Games after being given a wildcard by the Olympic Solidarity. “He (Niyomugabo) becomes our seventh athlete to compete in the Olympic Games. This good news for our country, and we hope he will use this opportunity to test himself against some of the elite swimmers from across the world,” said Mwambali by phone from London. Niyomugabo, who will compete in the 50m freestyle, travels to London on Monday. The 24-year old trains with Zenith club in Kibuye, Western Province while another London-bound swimmer, Alphonsine Agahozo is in Havre, France training under the Olympic Solidarity Fund. This will be the second Olympic Games for Niyomugabo, who was also in Beijing four years ago where he failed to go past the 50m freestyle preliminary round after clocking 27.74 seconds in the heat stage. He joins marathon runner Jean Pierre Mvuyekure, Robert Kajuga and Claudette Mukasakindi (both 10,000m), swimmer Agahozo, judo player Yannick Uwase Sekamana and mountain bike rider Adrien Niyonshuti. Team Rwanda arrived in the Games Village of the 2012 London Olympic Games at Stratford on Wednesday after leaving Suffolk for their pre-games training. The Games Village of the London Games was officially opened on Monday, 11 days before the opening ceremony of the world’s biggest sporting showcase, which is set to run from July 27 to August 12 in the British capital. The team is residing in the same apartments which also hosts Belgium, Portugal and are neighbors to Brazil and Canada.

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Swimmer Niyomugabo gets Olympic slot