At just 13 years old, Gaurika Singh of Nepal will be the youngest athlete competing at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Singh is a swimmer and will be competing in the 100m backstroke event on Sunday.
The youngest Olympic athlete survived the 2015 Nepalese earthquake
13-year-old Gaurika Singh is the youngest Olympian set to compete in Rio for the Summer Games.
Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images
But other than the strength and determination it took to get her to the Olympics, Singh has a remarkable story beyond that, having survived a major earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people in Nepal in April 2015.
Singh was there to compete in the Nepalese national swimming championships and was preparing with her family in Kathmandu, when the earthquake hit and she took shelter under a table in an office building. An estimated 3.5 million people were left homeless as a result of the quake.
“Luckily we were in a new office building, so it shook but nothing got damaged and it didn’t collapse,” Singh said, via the Sydney Morning Herald. “But the places around us were destroyed. I can’t really remember anything. It was just one big blur with everything shaking.”
Singh donated her winnings from national championships to help rebuild schools in the aftermath of the massive disaster. She was eligible to represent Great Britain in the Olympics, but she stuck to her roots and will try and bring glory to Nepal when she gets in the water on Sunday.
“I’m Nepalese, I’m not English or anything else,” she said.
Singh will be starting the ninth grade when she returns to her home and school in London after the Olympics. She is one of two Nepalese swimmers in Rio, alongside Sirish Gurung, who will be competing in the men’s 100m freestyle race on Tuesday.
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