The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

Inspired by her father and sister, who both competed at the Olympic Games, swimmer Laura Morley has decided to remain in Bloomington, Indiana in her quest to earn her berth at the four-yearly games.

The 24-year-old 2019 graduate from Indiana University is training with a group of 12 professional swimmers from different countries at her alma mater.

She competed in her first meet this year at the US Open in Indianapolis last month.

While she didn’t perform as well as she did in the virtual competition that was spread around the nation, Morley was back in the pool last week where she improved on her performances at a long course meet at Indiana University.

In the 100 metre breaststroke, Morley clocked one minute and seven seconds and in the 200m breaststroke, she did 2:28.4. However, she didn’t participate in the 200 individual medley.

“I didn’t do as well as I expected at the US Open because we were trying to iron out some of the cobwebs from the long lay off from COVID-19,” Morley said.

“So it was good to get up and race, but the times wasn’t necessarily what I wanted, but I was really pleased with my performances last weekend.”

With no more meets planned right now, Morley said she will just continue to train through. She does intend to take a beak for Christmas, although she will stay in Indiana.

However, in January, she is expected to return home to spend some time with her family and friends before she gets back into training for the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan, in July.

“I think the past few months have set my sights on where I need to go. It shows that I can achieve my goals, so I’m excited about training in 2021 and to see how far I can go in preparation for the Olympics.”

With the games being postponed this year because of the rise in the coronavirus pandemic around the world, Morley had mixed reactions about the world’s biggest sporting spectacular being pushed back to next year.

“When I heard about it, at first I was disappointed, but I realised that I would have a whole year to prepare for the Olympics,” Morley said.

“It was really unfortunate that it was postponed, but it gives a lot of athletes another year to prepare and maybe to learn more things about themselves. I know I have learned a lot about myself over the past eight months.”

Having graduated with her degree in advertising, Morley said she could have easily thrown in the towel and started to look at her professional career in the business world.

But she has a bigger goal in qualifying for the Olympics with the hopes of following in the footsteps of her father, David Morley, who represented the Bahamas in three events at the 1984 Olympics and her sister, Emily, who made history as the first Bahamian to compete in rowing at the 2016 Olympics.

“My goal has always been to be able to compete for the Bahamas at the highest level and so when COVID-19 hit, I did everything in my power to be training and to stay fit,” she stated.

“I think that has taught me that I do want to achieve my goals and I have the ability to achieve them.

The underlying thing about COVID-19 was an eye opener to see if you really wanted to put yourself out there and compete at the highest level in sports.”

Her father, David, who is now the proprietor of one of the major real estate companies in the country, has been her biggest inspiration in her quest to compete at the Olympics.

She was hoping that her sister would have stayed around so they could have competed together, but she’s now retired and living in Atlanta.

“Even since I found out that he was an Olympian, it was my goal to go to the Olympics, it was my goal to go to the Olympics,” she said. “But when my sister made it as the first rower to represent the Bahamas in 2016, that made my goals even bigger. It pushed me to be the athlete that I am today.”

Morley admits that she has an amazing support system out of her father and sister and they have inspired her in her quest to be an Olympian. “My father is very supportive of me because he understands the sacrifices that is needed to become an Olympian,” she said.

“So it’s awesome to be living with a father who is an Olympian and a sister, who has also done it. So it makes me want to push harder and stronger every day.”

In Indiana, Morley said they have to be tested at least twice a week for COVID-19 in order to be able to train at the university.

“On deck, we have to social distance and we have people going from opposite ends of the pool,” she said.

“You’re not allowed to have more than two people in the pool at a time, so we’ve made a lot of changes, but we have been able to train under those restrictions.”

At the meets, there are a lot of restrictions that the competitors have to adhere to. The good news is that a lot of the swimmers have already left the campus for the holidays so there’s not that many people training in the pool.

“The top priority for me is to just keep myself healthy,” she added.