Barely
three days after The Gambia made appearance in judo at the Olympic Games,
another growing sport in the country will make its maiden debut in the world
biggest sports competition on Thursday 11 August 2016 when young swimmer Papp D. Jonga will line up in the
50m freestyle at the Olympics Aquatic Stadium in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
A
grade eleven student at Gambia Senior Secondary School, young swimmer Pap D.
Jonga has represented The Gambia in many international competitions and coming
with good results.
He
competed in the 5th Zone African Swimming Championship in Dakar, Senegal, in
2016, the 28th Dakar-Goree Open Water Swimming competition of 4.5km where he
finished 92nd position over one thousand participants.
Born
in Barra, North Bank Region, on 1 July 1997 and member of Biramsira Swimming
Club, Pap D. Jonga has competed in two World FINA Swimming championships in
2014 in Doha, Qatar, and in 2016 in
Kazan, Russia, where finished 94th
position in the world ranking.
Based
on his performance, Pap D. Jonga was again selected to represent The Gambia at
the 28th Universiade Swimming Games in
Gwangiu, South Korea, in 2015 where he was ranked 70th in the world.
The
19-year-old Gambian swimmer will write history of swimming in The Gambia today
11 August 2016 for being the first Gambian to compete in the Swimming
Competition at the Olympic Games.
Pap
D. Jonga will compete in heat 3 today 11
August at 13.00pm in Brazil (15.00pm in Banjul) alongside Soule Alhoumane of
Comoros, Jules Bessan of Benin, Amadou Camara of Guinea, Brahim Nishwan of
Moldives, Dionisio Augustine of
Micronesia, Shawn Dingillus of
Palau and Santinous Inthavory of Laos.
He
is accompanied to the games by the technical director of Gambia Swimming
Association Mr Arfang Y. Jobe.
