This week, another member of the Fordham community will be participating in the Tokyo Olympics. In the 100-meter freestyle event, incoming Rams swimmer A. Shah, representing Nepal, will join previous Rams Nick Martinez (USA) and Fiona Murtagh (Ireland).
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A. Shah Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
A. Shah (born Alexander Gadegaard Shah; October 29, 2002) is a competitive swimmer for Nepal. He swam the 100-meter freestyle for Nepal in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
A. Shah received a “wild card” entry for the Olympics. Both of his parents were from Nepal, but he was raised in Denmark.
A member of the 2019 class of male swimmer recruits, A. Shah led the Lincoln School swimming team to many school and national records and was named team MVP and captain.
After that, he swam for Nepal Swimming, where he was named most valuable player in 2019 and where he ultimately qualified as a wild card for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
At the 2019 World Championships, A. Shah swam for Nepal and finished 101st in the 50-meter freestyle and 102nd in the 100-meter freestyle.
The preliminary round of the men’s 100-meter freestyle will begin on July 27 and the final will be held on July 29.
Seven swimmers competed in heat 1 at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, and the 18-year-old timed in at 53.41 seconds, good enough for first place. In doing so, he broke his own national record of 55.38 seconds.
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Unfortunately for the teen, he did not advance to the semi-finals. There will be a semi-final round with the top 16 swimmers. There was a cutoff time of 48.44 seconds, and only the fastest swimmers made the cut.
“I feel tremendously privileged to be here representing Nepal. While I am disheartened (at not qualifying), I am ecstatic to have set a new national record “added A. Shah, who intended to use his Olympic exposure to further his education and career.
“There is much more knowledge out there than what I currently possess. Only the shorter pool events interest me, and I never compete in the 50-meter distance “He was talking about the 50-meter pool event he had just competed in.
When the heats were over, A. Shah had placed 59th out of 70 swimmers. When the clock ran out, he had already passed 11 other swimmers. Thanks for reading our article A. Shah Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
