The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

RIO de Janeiro, Brazil - Today, Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace is all set to go for the elusive Olympic Games swimming medal .

With both Dustin Tynes and Joanna Evans finished, all of the pressure is on the veteran 26-year-old to deliver. She will be back in the National Olympic Stadium competing in lane three in the last of 12 heats of the preliminaries of the women’s 50 metres freestyle.

“I’m excited. I warmed up today and I did some copy sprint stuff, so I’m ready to go,” Vanderpool-Wallace told The Tribune yesterday during an interview in the Games Village.

After sleeping off her seventh place finish in the women’s 100m freestyle on Wednesday, which was used as a warm up for the 50m, Vanderpool-Wallace said she has taken it all in stride and remains focused on the ultimate goal she came here for and that is be a contender for a medal in the shortest and fastest race on the programme.

“I kind of knew what was going to happen in my 100m freestyle, so I wasn’t really feeling any kind of way about it. I was just preparing for the 50m,” she said.

As we look ahead to today’s preliminaries, Vanderpool-Wallace said she’s not going to put any added pressure on herself.

“I just really want to swim my best time and go faster than that,” said Vanderpool-Wallace of her lifetime best of 24.31, which is the Bahamas national record.

“Hopefully, I can go faster than that. I’ve been pasting, so hopefully I can get my hand on the wall to get me a great time and get me into the semi-final and from there we will work on the final.”

Despite the fact that she knows that there’s going to be a lot of pressure on her with so many people rooting for her at home, Vanderpool-Wallace said she’s looking forward to the challenge.

“I’m having fun. I’m really enjoying the fact that I’m able to pass the torch on to Dustin (Tynes) and Joanna (Evans) and that’s kind of helping me out to relieve the pressure a little bit. Joanna swum her last race today and now it’s kind of left up to me to finish it off for the swim team, so I’m really happy that I am able to do it.”

Although they have been here, along with rower Emily Morley, a few days before the athletic team arrived in Rio, Vanderpool-Wallace said it was good for them to all blend together as one team representing the Bahamas.

“We’re all within two floors of each other, having fun, enjoying each other’s company because we don’t really get to spend a whole lot of time with the track team and we never really got to spend time with Emily Morley with rowing, so we’re all just getting to know each other and hanging out.”

For Vanderpool-Wallace, who is making her third appearance at the four-yearly games, she admits that she’s a lot more relieved because she had some company in swimming here after she went solo at the London Olympics in 2012.

“I didn’t really know the track and field people, but they welcomed me with open arms in London and they’re doing a great job here, just kind of getting us all together and hanging out. So really it’s a fun experience here. Rio did a great job in taking care of us, so I can’t ask for more.”

Except to get on the dais to receive a medal at the end of the 50m final scheduled for approximately 9:02pm EST on Saturday.