Meet the youngest athlete at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games Gaurika Singh who is just 13

By Sona Kadam on August 7, 2016 at 3:11 PM

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The biggest sporting event in the world Olympics has started, out of 11 athletes taking part this rio Olympic, one is Gaurika Singh who is the youngest athlete to take part this year ,she is just 13 and 255 days.

Gaurika was born in Nepal but moved to London at the age of two. She will make her Olympic debut on Sunday’s 100m backstroke preliminary.

But she said such achievements at Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls in Hertfordshire, England – a highly competitive independent school – are par for the course.When asked what her school friends think about her Rio jaunt, Singh told: “They’re happy for me but a lot of people at my school are successful.

“Like national tennis players, a girl playing in the Harry Potter film – the new one – and Matilda on Broadway.”

2015 Earthquake Survivor:

Like the other athletes she also has a story to tell, Gaurika is a 2015 Nepal earthquake survivor which nearly left 9,000 dead.

“It was terrifying,” she said of the experience she endured with her mother, Garima, and younger brother Sauren while they were back in Nepal for the national swimming championships.

The family, in a fifth-floor apartment of a building in Kathmandu, sheltered under a table before using the stairs to leave the building as the aftershocks rumbled. “Fortunately, it was a new building so it did not collapse like others around,” she said.

Back to business:

Singh started to compete in the Nepal championships at the age of 11. In one of Kathmandu’ s two 50-metre pools, she broke seven national records, prompting thoughts that she might make the Olympics.

“I wanted to go but was not sure I would be able to because I would be too young,” She said, adding, “When I found out a month ago, it was a big shock.”

Stopped by security to enter the pool in Rio:

“Sorry, athletes only”, the politely spoken woman said to Singh before flashing her accreditation to gain access to the pool deck. It’s hard to believe this baby-faced girl with braces, who will start the ninth grade when she returns to school in London next month, is an Olympian.

Her father Paras believes his daughter, who gets up at 4.00 a.m. each day to train, deserves her success.”She is special,” he said. “It is unbelievable that she is the youngest Olympian in Rio and amazing how she copes with all the pressure,”

Gaurika will be entering the Rio water on Sunday IN 100m backstroke category.