The Chilean Olympic Committee has announced that two swimmers, Kristel Kobrich and Felipe Tapia, will be representing Chile in the upcoming Olympic Games.
21-year old Felipe Tapia will be swimming the 1500 m freestyle at his first Olympics. He achieved the B cut in this event at the 2015 World Championships in Kazan, Russia with a time of 15:45.63. In an interview with the Chilean Olympic Committee, Tapia said that he is very happy and excited to represent his country. His goal is not only to achieve a personal best, but also to move up in rankings. He will be training in Argentina up until he travels to Rio.
Dubbed the “Little Mermaid”, Kristel Kobrich is one of the best swimmers in Chilean history. The three-time Olympian is entered to swim the 800 m freestyle in Rio. She holds the Chilean record in this event with a time of 8:21.66. Kobrich will be facing some of the worlds best swimmers, including Americans Katie Ledecky and Leah Smith. Both Ledecky and Smith had outstanding performances at the U.S. Olympic trials– Ledecky finished first clocking in at 8:10.32, with Smith coming in second at 8:20.18.
Kobrich and Tapia will make the 16th and 17th entries for Chile in swimming at the Olympics since making their aquatics debut in 1928, but that’s never netted a medal or even a finalist.
Chile has a brand-new aquatic center in Santiago, host of the 2014 South American Games. Indoor 10 lane 50m x 25m pool, diving well, lots of seats; outdoor 50m pool. Nice commitment to the sport. This pool is probably one of the best permanent pools in the Western Hemisphere, right up there with Toronto and Montreal. I hope this signals a commitment to the sport. Chile has a stable democracy, a highly-education population, and a very strong and versatile economy, based on agriculture (almost all our winter fruits), mining (most of the world’s copper and much of the world’s lithium and salt), and tourism (best skiing in South America; huge eco-parks; the Atacama Desert). I think this is the beginning… Read more »
I’ve lived in Santiago for nearly 7 years and we are definitely nowhere close to being capable of holding the Olympics. The lone airport is seriously over capacity already, the city infrastructure isn’t capable of supporting that many visitors, and the Chilean government has put zero priority on national sports besides the awesome soccer team (Kobrich spent years training in Argentina), not to mention non-soccer sports facilities. The South American Games were a good first shot, with a couple of glaring problems, but (assuming the economy begins to recover and the government has the extra funds to spend on sports infrastructure) the next goal should be the Pan-American Games.
Also, the blocks at the newly remodeled pool (the center… Read more »