OLYMPIC-BOUND TT swimmer Cherelle Thompson is keenly anticipating the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as the marquee sporting event will be a celebration of victory as the world has had to endure countless challenges caused by the covid19 pandemic.

Thompson will make her Olympic debut when she competes in the women’s 50-metre freestyle at the games from July 23-August 8.

Leading up to the Olympics, Thompson has been training in South Florida with Performance Aquatics.

In an interview with Newsday last week, Thompson said, “Heading into my first Olympic Games I definitely feel excited, I feel a lot of anticipation building each day that it gets closer. I am hungry for the experience that I have been working towards my entire life literally and I am really even more so excited because of the fact that I would be representing TT not just at the Olympic Games, but at a historical Olympic Games. This Tokyo Olympic Games I believe will be a true celebration of triumph over the huge amount of challenges that we all have faced in the last 12 months.”

On her recent training programme, Thompson said she would start reducing the intensity of her training as the countdown to the Olympic Games begins.

“I am getting ready to taper, to bring down the workload but in these last few weeks I have been putting in about five hours per day of work.”

Gym work and time in the pool are included in the training regime.

Thompson, who has started a Go Fund Me page to support her final weeks of training, is enjoying the process leading up to Tokyo.

“I am enjoying the journey taking it as it comes. The good with the bad, the challenges and the triumphs along the way and that is what this whole journey to Japan is about. Taking every step, taking in every moment, absorbing it and producing from it the very best that I can.”

Thompson knows that the athletes will not be able to sightsee in Japan because of the pandemic.

“The pandemic has caused restriction on our movement. I don’t know how much sight-seeing I will be able to do in Japan, probably through the windowpane of the buses or the cars…I do wish that I would have been able to get to see more of Japan, but as it is right now the priority is for us to remain healthy and safe and to execute these Olympic Games in accordance with all the protocols that the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and the Japan Federation is putting in place.”