{"id":24178,"date":"2012-07-30T10:51:08","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T14:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=24178"},"modified":"2012-07-30T10:51:52","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T14:51:52","slug":"bahamas-one-woman-olympic-swim-team-aims-to-make-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2012\/07\/bahamas-one-woman-olympic-swim-team-aims-to-make-history","title":{"rendered":"Bahamas One-Woman Olympic Swim Team Aims To Make History"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_24179\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-24179\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24179\" title=\"arianna-vanderpool-wallace\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/arianna-vanderpool-wallace.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/arianna-vanderpool-wallace.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/arianna-vanderpool-wallace-150x112.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-24179\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Swimming took Bahamian Olympian Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace off the island. Now, she hopes to help the sport take off on the island.<\/p>\n<p>The former Auburn star is the lone female swimmer representing the Bahamas Olympic team in London, coming from a tiny nation where water play is largely the domain of tourists, not natives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s really sad. We\u2019re surrounded by water, we\u2019re literally surrounded by water, and so many people don\u2019t know how to swim,\u201d Vanderpool-Wallace said.<\/p>\n<p>Algernon Cargill, president of the Bahamas Swimming Federation, estimates that 70 percent of the some 350,000 Bahamians can\u2019t swim more than 50 meters. No swimmer from the Bahamas has made the Olympic semifinals.<\/p>\n<p>Cargill said the sport\u2019s popularity has increased significantly over the past 15 years, but that it has traditionally been regarded as an elite sport for private schools and the affluent.<\/p>\n<p>Vanderpool-Wallace is already well-known at home. She\u2019s the first Bahamian to win a medal at a world swimming meet, taking third at the 2010 Short Course World Championships in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n<p>He said if Vanderpool-Wallace even makes the finals \u201cit would be a huge deal in the Bahamas.\u201d No Bahamian swimmer has made an Olympic semifinals.<\/p>\n<p>She won the NCAA\u2019s 100 freestyle the past two years and the 50 free in 2011, finishing third as a senior.<\/p>\n<p>Vanderpool-Wallace and Natalie Coughlin are the only women to break 47 seconds in the 50 free. She owns 10 Bahamian national records, including relays.<\/p>\n<p>Source: The Washington Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bahamian Olympian Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace is the only female swimmer representing the Bahamas Olympic team in London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[376,131],"class_list":["post-24178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-athletes","tag-sports-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}