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British Olympian Eva Okaro has signed with the University of Texas and will head to Austin next fall to join the women’s swimming and diving team. At the time of her verbal commitment, she wrote:
“I am so excited to announce my verbal commitment to the University of Texas where I will continue my athletic and academic career. I am super grateful for this opportunity, looking forward to seeing what the future holds. HOOK EM’🤘🔥”
Okaro specializes in sprint free and fly. She is currently competing at the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships 2025, taking place this week in London, and has so far won national titles in the 50 free (24.48) and 50 fly (26.19), both with lifetime bests. She’ll swim the 100 fly on Saturday and the 100 free on Sunday.
She is the reigning World Junior Record-holder in the SCM 50 free, having taken down Anastasyia Shkurdai’s previous WJR mark (23.69) with 23.66 in the final at 2024 Short Course World Championships in Budapest last December. Okaro finished just off the podium in fourth place behind Gretchen Walsh (22.83 World Record), Kate Douglass (23.05), and Kasia Wasick (23.37). She became the second-fastest British swimmer of all time with the swim, trailing only Fran Halsall who clocked a 23.44 in 2009.
Okaro was featured in British Vogue when she became the first black woman to represent Team GB in the swimming pool at the Olympics last summer in Paris. She swam a leg on Great Britain’s women’s 4×100 free relay in both the prelims and the final, splitting 53.84 and 53.75, respectively. She first broke onto the international scene at age 14 when she represented Team GB at the 2021 LEN European Junior Championships in Rome and took home a bronze medal in the 50 free with 25.45, after going 25.33 in the semi-finals.
Okaro and her twin sister Izzy Okaro grew up in Kent. Both elite swimmers, they now board at Repton School in Derby, about 3 hours to the north.
Best times (converted):
| SCM | LCM | |
| 50 free | 23.66 (21.31) | 24.48 (21.33) |
| 100 free | 54.01 (48.65) | 54.45 (47.61) |
| 50 fly | 25.83 (23.27) | 26.19 (22.96) |
| 100 fly | 1:00.07 (54.11) | 59.44 (52.28) |
The Longhorns finished third in the team standings at the 2025 NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships, getting edged by Stanford, 417-394, for second place. Okaro’s best converted 50 free time would have landed her in the A final, where she would have placed 5th. She also would have been a welcome addition to Texas’s sprint relays. She will begin next fall with the other members of the class of 2029: Haley McDonald, Avery Collins, Sarah Rodrigues, Ella Mongenel, and Nikolett Padar.
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Texas women have been great in a lot of areas but sprint freestyle has been their weakest. This is a huge step towards changing that. Could be really fun to watch her and Sara Curtis battle it out in the NCAA.
The Bowman effect.
Bowman’s going to kill her 50’s
She’ll be a great training partner with Simone. She’ll be fine
How will he do that exactly? He coaches the men. And, on the men’s side, he doesn’t coach the sprinters.
Is she even going to be training much with Bob? I thought the men’s and women’s groups at Texas were kept pretty separate (pro group notwithstanding)
based on what? when training with bob, simones 50 (out of the 3 events in her program) popped the most with taper…
Born in 2006, the first black woman to represent her national swimming team at the Olympics, just swam 24.4 in the 50 free at the last Nationals, will swim in the NCAA … The analogies with Sara Curtis’ resume are quite amusing.
Honestly makes no sense to me she is a sprinter. UVA, ASU, Michigan all would have been better choices.
Hype has a large impact on these decisions
Bowman is collecting super talent like Thanos collecting infinity stones.
This isn’t his pickup
If you can’t develop talent you had better recruit it.
Names? Don’t say Guiliano
I wonder if she considered looking at Virginia
This article came out 6 months too late