For na­tion­al swim­mer, Cherelle Thomp­son get­ting to the Olympic Games has been a life­long dream ever since she watched fel­low T&T swim­mer, two-time Olympic Sharn­telle Mc Clean com­pete at the 2008 Olympic Games in Bei­jing, Chi­na.

In re­flect­ing on how she felt when she re­ceived con­fir­ma­tion of her par­tic­i­pa­tion at the Tokyo Olympics and her jour­ney to get there and what it can do to help mo­ti­vate oth­er ath­letes, Thomp­son told Guardian Me­dia Sports, “The days lead­ing up to when the an­nounce­ment was go­ing to be made of­fi­cial for Tokyo, I re­al­ly had all the emo­tions set in.”

She added, “I had the teary eyes as I re­mem­ber that when I was younger there was a morn­ing when Sharn­telle (Mc Clean) was go­ing to race at the Olympics (2008 Bei­jing Games) in the 50m freestyle. I re­mem­ber I woke up ear­ly and ran down­stairs to watch her swim on the TV and now I am in that po­si­tion as an ath­lete, some lit­tle girl or the lit­tle boy is go­ing to be look­ing on, and will be in­spired by the jour­ney and ex­pe­ri­ence that I am now liv­ing as well as the dream that I’m get­ting to live out.”

Hav­ing at­tempt­ed to get to the Olympic Games in the past, it seemed in­evitable that it would all come in­to place for Thomp­son on the Asian con­ti­nent, the place where she twice com­pet­ed pre­vi­ous­ly at the high­est lev­el, at the FI­NA World Aquat­ics Cham­pi­onships.

In 2011, Thomp­son com­pet­ed in the women’s 50m freestyle event at the World Aquat­ics Cham­pi­onship held in Shang­hai, Chi­na but did not ad­vance to the semi­fi­nals.

Eight years lat­er on the Asian con­ti­nent once more, she com­pet­ed at the 2019 World Aquat­ics Cham­pi­onship held in Gwangju, South Ko­rea, at which she swam the women’s 50m freestyle but did not ad­vance to the semi­fi­nals.

Now two years on and she will re­turn to Asia for her Olympic de­but, some­thing she is ex­treme­ly elat­ed to have ac­com­plished.

At 6.38 am on Fri­day, Thomp­son will com­pete in heat 7 of 11 at the Tokyo Aquat­ics Cen­tre from lane six against Mei-Chien Huang (Chi­nese Taipei), Je­serik Pin­to (Venezuela), Is­abel­la Ar­cila (Colom­bia), Bian­ca-An­dreea Costea (Ro­ma­nia), Amel Melih (Al­ge­ria), Karen Tor­rez (Bo­livia), Allyson Pon­son (Aru­ba).

When she makes her de­but, Thomp­son will join two-time Olympians Siob­han Crop­per, and Mc Lean, and the trio of Cer­ian Gibbes, Lin­da Mc Eachrane and Karen Di­ef­fen­thaler as fe­male swim­mers to have rep­re­sent­ed T&T at a Sum­mer Olympic Games.

T&T-born Sangee­ta Puri al­so swam at the Olympics but did so for In­dia in 1996.

A few weeks be­fore head­ing to Tokyo an elat­ed Thomp­son said she felt elat­ed, re­lieved, ho­n­oured, and grate­ful to be named among the con­tin­gent of ath­letes that will be rep­re­sent­ing TTO at these his­toric games.

Thomp­son sealed her tick­et in Jan­u­ary 2020 in the women’s 50m freestyle at the TYR Pro Swim Se­ries host­ed at her al­ma mater in Knoxville TN to join USA-based Dy­lan Carter as swim­mers to have at­tained the qual­i­fy­ing stan­dards for Tokyo.

The time swam by Thomp­son was 25.39 sec­onds which was un­der the 25.51 qual­i­fi­ca­tion time and was achieved on the last day of the meet via a Time Tri­al.

The old­er sis­ter of na­tion­al women’s vol­ley­baller, Chan­non Thomp­son re­flect­ing on that mo­ment said, “All of my events had al­ready swum and I was a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ed for not hav­ing achieved the B cut at that point.

She said, “And for that Time Tri­al I just stood be­hind the start­ing block and de­cid­ed to give every­thing that I could and that I had left at that mo­ment. Per­son­al­ly, I didn’t think that I had any­thing left but my coach­es (both Col­lege coach (Matt Kredich and Lance Asti) and lo­cal coach (Stephen Men­doza) en­cour­aged me to just go for it and I just gave every­thing I had and then to touch the wall and see the time, my face just lit up. I was just so ex­cit­ed and en­cour­aged that things were fi­nal­ly com­ing to­geth­er and the pieces of my race had come to­geth­er at that mo­ment for me to touch the wall with that Olympic qual­i­fy­ing stan­dard again."

A Uni­ver­si­ty of Ten­nessee in Knoxville, Ten­nessee, USA grad­u­ate, Thomp­son added, “I had been in that po­si­tion be­fore hav­ing achieved the B cut in 2016 and for me hav­ing achieved the times served as an en­cour­age­ment and mo­ti­va­tion to reach that step­ping stone, but it was not the moun­tain top as there was noth­ing de­fin­i­tive say­ing that I was go­ing to Tokyo. Not un­til my name was called and I got that let­ter from FI­NA and that an­nounce­ment from the lo­cal Olympic Com­mit­tee (T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee).”

About the op­por­tu­ni­ty, she said, “That’s when the emo­tion of ex­cit­ing and re­lief and just com­plete grat­i­tude for hav­ing this op­por­tu­ni­ty and this mo­ment come to­geth­er es­pe­cial­ly af­ter the two years that I would of have, first with my in­jury that I over­came, and then the lack of op­por­tu­ni­ties due to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic last year.”

“On Ju­ly 3, 2021, I was of­fi­cial­ly named to team TTO for Tokyo 2020 Olympics and this is sure­ly a dream come true and a re­mark­able ex­pe­di­tion.”

In ex­plain­ing what it means to her and her fam­i­ly as well as coach­es and all who have con­tributed to her suc­cess, Thomp­son said this ac­com­plish­ment is the cul­mi­na­tion of a grow­ing cir­cle of co-dream­ers who have helped to make this a re­al­i­ty.

“Af­ter hav­ing qual­i­fied in 2016 and re­tir­ing from the sport with­out my dream be­ing re­al­ized in Rio Olympics, it feels like I've come full cir­cle, but I'm not the same ath­lete as I was at the last wheel,” she ex­plained.

Thomp­son shared that, “I have grown to pos­sess a greater lev­el of faith, tenac­i­ty and pas­sion be­cause of my chal­lenges. Ever since I was a lit­tle girl, I want­ed to com­pete at the Olympics but on my Road to Tokyo, I had to over­come in­juries, closed doors, ridicule, de­mands of med­ical school, post­pone­ment and dis­rup­tion by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.”

In rec­og­niz­ing those who have in­spired her to keep on fight­ing Thomp­son said, “I stand on their shoul­ders and on those of spe­cial Olympians who have close­ly men­tored and in­spired me along my jour­ney like Sharn­telle McLean, An­drew Lewis and George Bovell III. They paved the way for me and left last­ing de­posits in my life.”

Look­ing ahead to her de­but at the Games on Fri­day, she said, “When I get be­hind that block in Japan, I won't be swim­ming alone. I will be fu­elled by the prayers and well wish­es of my im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly and coach­ing team as well as my en­tire ex­tend­ed team of sup­port. I will be fu­eled by my vi­sion to see more Caribbean fe­male ath­letes out­last­ing their chal­lenges; find­ing suc­cess and sig­nif­i­cance with­in and be­yond their sport­ing ca­reer. I am grate­ful for this mo­ment and I'm giv­ing every­thing I've got."