R E SILIEN CE AWARD:
SARAH SJOSTROM (50 FREE)
I
n early February, Sarah Sjostrom’s preparation for her fourth Olympic Games was derailed when she slipped on ice and fractured her elbow. She immediately underwent surgery and had screws and a metal plate inserted, but Sjostrom was expected to be out of the pool for months as she tried to make a full recovery. Once she returned to the pool, Sjostrom had mere months to go before the Tokyo Games. Sjostrom won her first three Olympic medals at the 2016 Olympics (gold in the 100 fly, silver in the 200 free and bronze in the 100 free), and she has earned eight World Championship gold medals across a decade-long span (2009 to 2019) in the 50 free, 50 fly and 100 fly. She has had most of the success over her career in fly, but given the circumstances of her injury, she suggested that she may concentrate on sprint freestyle for Tokyo and possibly even eschew the opportunity to defend her 100 fly Olympic title from 2016. Sjostrom’s 2021 racing schedule prior to the Games was incredibly light: the Mare Nostrum meet in Canet in early June followed by the Sette Colli meet in Rome a few months later. It turns out that was enough, and Sjostrom decided to enter all three of her signature events at the Olympics, the 100 butterfly, 100 freestyle and 50 freestyle. She held the world record in all three races, although no one was expecting her to be at that level so close to her injury. Indeed, when Sjostrom showed up in Tokyo, she was not perfect, but for a swimmer who just spent months rehabbing an injury, she acquitted herself nicely. Sjostrom opened the Games with the >> Despite fracturing her right elbow in February and undergoing surgery to have screws and a metal plate inserted, Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom was not only able to compete five months later at the Tokyo 100 fly, the race about which she had been Olympics, but also claim a silver medal in the 50 meter freestyle on the final day of competition. so unsure, and while she was behind in her [ Photo Courtesy: Robert Hanashiro / USA Today Sports ] heat at the start, she came back with the closing speed that has been her signature days of the Olympics and her final race, the 50 freestyle. She since she broke her first world record at age qualified fourth after prelims and third after the semifinals, and then, 15, to touch out American teenager Torri Huske. Sjostrom’s time in in the final, she secured a silver medal. Her time was 24.07, nowhere that race was 56.18, and she looked completely shocked and thrilled close to her world record of 23.73, but that did not matter one bit as she glanced at the scoreboard. to Sjostrom. After three Olympic medals at the 2016 Rio Games, “Today I felt extremely strong, and it was my best time in like Sjostrom added a fourth, the least likely of any medal she has won four years,” she said. “Obviously, that’s a big surprise after the in a lengthy international career. preparations I’ve had the last six months.” “This is one of my biggest achievements in my career. I’ve been During the first morning of finals, Sjostrom led off Sweden’s 400 winning a lot of medals and breaking a lot of world records, but this freestyle relay in 52.62, breaking the Olympic record at the time. has been the toughest challenge so far,” Sjostrom said. “We didn’t She did not manage to improve on her 100 fly prelims time, and she know if I would make it all the way to the podium—we were just ended up finishing seventh in the final, but it was the freestyle events like, ‘Maybe a final if I can.’ It has been a really hard journey, but it that Sjostrom had been targeting. A few days later, the 27-year-old has definitely made me even tougher as an athlete.” Swede qualified for the 100 free final and finished fifth in what was For that stunning performance, Sjostrom was undoubtedly the the fastest field in history in that race. Still, Sjostrom was without a medal heading into the last two most resilient swimmer in the pool in Tokyo. — David Rieder CONTINUED ON 22 >> SEPTEMBER 2021
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