Dubai swimming trio begin London Olympics quest

Three of Dubai’s best swimmers begin their quest to qualify for the London 2012 Olympics today, with a test event getting underway at the competition pool in England. Velimir Stjepanovic, Tiago Venancio and Stefan Sorak are part of the Hamilton Aquatics squad that will take to the pool at London’s brand-new Aquatics Centre over the coming days, aiming to post the Olympic qualifying time. While none of the three will be representing the UAE, they live and train in Dubai under the tutelage of coach Chris Tidey. Stjepanovic, 19, is the only one of the three born in the UAE, and represents Serbia. He has golds at the British Nationals, Youth Olympics - where he was ranked No.1 in the world - and European Championships. Sorak, 18, is also representing Serbia, while Venancio, 24, who has previous Olympic experience having competed in Beijing 2008 and Athens 2004, is representing Portugal. “We always wanted to go to the Olympics. London 2012 is our first real chance to go there together,” explains Sorak, who is currently on a gap year, and who competed in the World Championships in Shanghai last year. “They’d (Stjepanovic and Sorak) have been too young for Beijing, but they’ve been lucky enough to do the Youth Olympics in Singapore two years ago,” continues coach Tidey. Stjepanovic is optimistic about his chances of success at the trials, having competed against - and beaten - many of the participants at the Youth Olympics in 2010. “A lot of the people who came first in Singapore will most likely be at the Olympics. I won two medals in Singapore, both in the age group above me.” As for setting goals, the trio are purely focused on setting their Olympic qualifying times, before dreaming of making the finals, or even getting amongst the medals. “Doing my Olympic time and placing myself as high as possible would be a success for me. We’re all in the same situation, we have to make the times. You have a lot of the best swimmers in the world who don’t even make semi-finals” says Sorak, while Stjepanovic feels “there is a lot left training-wise.” “When you get to the Olympics, sometimes things go wrong. There’s 17,000 people watching so it’s as much about how you handle the occasion,” added Tidey.