Shrone Austin

Shrone Austin

Personal information
Full name	Shrone Austin
National team	Seychelles
Born	31 January 1989 Victoria, Seychelles
Height	1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight	70 kg (154 lb)
Sport
Sport	Swimming
Strokes	Freestyle, breaststroke
Medal record Women's swimming Representing the Seychelles All-Africa Games 2003 Abuja 800 m freestyle 2003 Abuja 1500 m freestyle 2003 Abuja 400 m medley 2003 Abuja 400 m freestyle 2011 Maputo 800 m freestyle 2011 Maputo 1500 m freestyle

Shrone Austin (born January 31, 1989) is a Seychellois swimmer, who specialized in freestyle and breaststroke events.^[1] She first competed in the women's 100 m breaststroke at the 2004 Summer Olympics, before turning her sights on the long-distance freestyle at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Apart from her Olympic career, Austin had collected a career total of six medals (three silvers and three bronzes) in two editions of the All-Africa Games (2003 and 2011).^[2]

Austin made her own swimming history, as Seychelles' youngest ever athlete (aged 15), at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, where she competed in the 100 m breaststroke. Swimming in heat one, she raced to third and forty-third overall in her lifetime best of 1:19.02, almost a full-second margin behind Armenia's Varduhi Avetisyan (0.15) and three-time Olympian and leader Katerine Moreno (0.67).^[3][4]

At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Austin decided to drop her breaststroke specialty, and instead challenge herself with a long-distance freestyle. Swimming against Hungary's Boglárka Kapás, and Thailand's Natthanan Junkrajang (who later forced to pull out from the prelims) in heat one of the 400 m freestyle, Austin came up with a steady swim throughout the race, but could not catch her Hungarian rival near the wall to finish only in second and forty-first at 4:35.86.^[5]

Austin also competed in three events at the 2006 Commonwealth Games held in Melbourne, Australia, she competed in the freestyle events for the 200 metres,^[6] the 400 metres^[7] and the 800 metres^[8] but didn't reach the final in any of the three events.

Achievements

Austin won the Seychelles Sportswoman of the year in 2003 when she was just 14 years old.^[9]

References

1. "Shrone Austin". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
2. Belhadj, Chaker (18 October 2003). "South Africa Dominates the African Games, Egypt a Strong Second". Swimming World Magazine. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
3. "Women's 100m Breaststroke Heat 1". Athens 2004. BBC Sport. 15 August 2004. Retrieved 31 January 2013.
4. Thomas, Stephen (15 August 2004). "Women's 100 Breaststroke Prelims: Aussies Hanson and Jones Qualify One-Two". Swimming World Magazine. Retrieved 19 April 2013.
5. "Swimming: Women's 400m Freestyle – Heat 1". Beijing 2008. NBC Olympics. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
6. "200m freestyle results". thecgf.com. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
7. "400m freestyle results". thecgf,com. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
8. "800m freestyle results". thecgf.com. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
9. "Swimming - Shrone Austin". nation.sc. Retrieved 30 October 2016.

External links

• NBC Olympics Profile