Fraser gets Olympic selection time in 100m freestyle

By Cayman Sports Buzz
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Updated: 9 August 2019

Brett Fraser returned to competitive action after a break of more than 5 years. (Images by Jade Webster)

Cayman Islands swimmer Brett Fraser earned himself an Olympic selection B-standard and made the finals of the men’s 100m freestyle on his return to competitive swimming at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru.

Fraser, 29, was seventh fastest in the heats with a time of 49.68 seconds on Thursday 8 August. This not only booked his spot in the finals but was quicker than the B-standard of 50.03 seconds set by swimming’s world governing body, FINA, for swimmers looking to book berths at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. He then finished eighth in the final with 49.97 seconds. The automatic qualifying time for the Olympics is 48.57 seconds.

“For a day of racing, I feel happy with both of those performances,” said Fraser, who has made his return to competition after a break of more than five years.

“It feels good to be at a place I thought I would be and physically, I think everything is in place, it’s just a matter of going back and putting in the training that is necessary to qualify for the A-standard and be competitive with the international seed of swimmers right now, which is highly competitive,” he told Team Cayman’s Press Attaché Jade Webster.

Cayman’s most accomplished swimmer and 2011 Pan American Games 200m freestyle gold medallist is keeping his eyes locked on his goal of being competitive at what would be his fourth Olympics in Tokyo next year.

“The experience that I was able to get tonight is monumental and very important for my training going forward and it allows me to have a concrete grasp of where I am and where I need to go,” he said.

“I’m relearning training, racing, and all that stuff. I only started a few months earlier this year and we have a year to go before Tokyo and the plan is to be as fast as possible as soon as possible. Once we resume training and get back into some more competitions, the speed will be there.

Meantime, Lauren Hew did not advance from the preliminaries in the women’s 100m freestyle after finishing in 1:01.38.

Fraser and Hew are back in the pool on Friday for the 50m freestyle. They are both national long course record holders in this event, Brett with a time of 22.41 seconds set in 2011 and Lauren, whose best time is 26.59 seconds set at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.

Cayman’s other swimmer, John Bodden, returns to the pool on Saturday 10 August for the 1,500m freestyle.