Team GB's first black female swimmer, quits the sport

[divingbrit]

Achieng Ajulu-Bushell, the first black woman to swim for Great Britain, has quit her Olympic breaststroke dream after claiming she received insufficient support from the sport’s governing body.

The 17 year-old, regarded as one of Britain’s brightest prospects, recently left British Swimming’s World Class Performance programme and will not compete at the Olympic trials in London next month. Instead, she will focus on her A-levels, having been awarded a conditional place to study fine arts at Oxford University in September.

The talented swimmer, who first made waves in 2010 after switching allegiance from Kenya to Great Britain, insisted that she has few regrets, having claimed that she would “rather have a first-class degree than an Olympic medal”.

“It is my easiest way of justifying it [not competing at the Games],” she told The Daily Telegraph. “I haven’t been overly motivated for a year and didn’t get better for two. It is a brutal sport and horrible to go through the plateau when things aren’t going right. There was a huge lack of support for athletes not doing well.

“So many needed attention that it just went against British Swimming’s ethos of this being a long-term sport. But I’m not bitter. I just got to the stage where I got fed up. My stroke was changed and I simply lost rhythm and strength in my legs.”

A former world No1 in 50m short course and classmate of Tom Daley’s at Plymouth College, Ajulu-Bushell won the 50m and 100m breaststroke at the British Nationals two years ago.

She made her senior debut for Britain on the banks of the Danube at the 2010 European Championships, but failed to qualify for the finals.

She went on to compete for England at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi where she finished fifth and eighth in her two events. Last year, though, she missed out on qualification for the World Championships in China, having fallen ill and taken time out for school exams.

Asked whether she would return to the pool after her degree, she said: "It's never say never, but the whole environment is tough."

British Swimming said the door would remain open for her to return. “We fully support Achieng’s decision to move on from swimming,” head coach Dennis Pursley said. “She is a young athlete so the doors of opportunity would not be closed to her.”


Telegraph.co.uk