Michelle Weber is still only 24 and Tokyo is already her second Olympics, and as long as the hunger is there, her talent will put her in the mix for Paris and in that rare category of being a three-time Olympian.
There’s a knock on the interview room door inside Team SA’s Olympic Village headquarters. In steps Michelle Weber, wearing her black mask, which hides much of her face but not the two fresh wounds above her right eye.“Come on in. What happened to the eye?”
“I’d love to go to Paris 2024. It’s in three years’ time and coming here I wasn’t sure that I’d want to go through another cycle with all the sacrifices. But I have unfinished business.”Weber is still only 24 and Tokyo is already her second Olympics, and as long as the hunger is there, her talent will put her in the mix for Paris and in that rare category of being a three-time Olympian.
“The conditions were incredibly difficult. Think of swimming in a Jacuzzi for [more than] two hours. We started off in a water temperature of 29 degrees and it was pushing 30 degrees by the end of the race. “Our Covid lockdown and restrictions were longer and more stringent than so many other countries. Pools were closed, we couldn’t travel, we received no funding.
Weber, whose post-race analytics show that she averaged 45.4 strokes per minute – 5,741 strokes for the entire race – is at pains to portray the thoughts of someone who isn’t disappointed but wants to let us into her world.“There was funding too, which meant that we were based in Italy for four to five weeks, then went to Florida for another four to five weeks and then down to Rio from there.
“There’s a lot of added pressure under those circumstances, knowing the expectations are to bring back medals. But, as I’ve explained, there were a lot of factors at play.
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