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Bahrain’s Alzain Tareq talks about her idols at Kazan

Kazan

When a 10-year-old girl from Bahrain took to the water in the 50m butterfly at the World Championships in Kazan last morning, it prompted raised eyebrows and no little confusion.

Alzain Tareq was born in 2005, the same year in which Britain’s Commonwealth champion Fran Halsall – who also competed in Russia this morning – won two senior medals at the British Championships.

But given there is no age restriction placed upon entrants by FINA, the world governing body, Tareq took her place on the starting blocks in the heats, grouped in a quintet with swimmers from Bangladesh, Kosovo, Ethiopia and the Northern Mariana islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Her world championship debut took place in lane two, with empty lanes to her left and the other four swimmers to her right, the swimmers grouped because of their slow entry times. The closest to Tareq in age was Angel De Jesus, born in 1999, from the Northern Mariana Islands.

The gulf between the five and the seeded heats was vast; as well as Halsall, those heats included the likes of world 100m butterfly champion Sarah Sjostrom – Tarek’s idol – defending champion Jeanette Ottesen, six-time world medallist Inge Dekker and 2013 silver medallist Lu Ying.

It is unclear when the age restriction preventing those under 14 from competing at the world championships was removed. Tareq would not, for example, have been able to swim at the world junior championships where girls must be 14 to compete.

Nonetheless, Tareq enjoyed her dash on the world stage despite coming in 64th out of 64 in 41.13secs, the slowest in the field by close to five seconds and 14.64secs off what it took to make the semi-final.

She showed no nerves coming through the mixed zone and talking to journalists instead happy to talk about her life, her swimming and her idols.

“I feel so happy,” she beamed. “I was a bit nervous walking out there, I have never swum in front of so many. It was cool today and I am looking forward to swimming again tomorrow (in the 50m freestyle).”

She listed her idols as Sarah Sjostrom, the Swedish 100m butterfly champion and fastest through the heats today, as well as the Australian Campbell sisters, Cate and Bronte who lined up in the 100m freestyle final later last night.

“I spoke to her (Sjostrom) and asked if I could take my picture with her and she told me ‘good luck’,” said the elated 10-year old.

“Cate Campbell from Australia is my also idol.... and her sister Bronte. I took a picture with Cate, but not her sister, and Cate didn’t talk to me.”

As with any young athlete, she combines training with school where she studies from 7am to 2pm. She is in the water five days a week, sometimes twice a day, with a group of 20 girls who are outnumbered by the boys, in both a 25m and 50m pool.

She has her eyes set on the Olympics although given there are age restrictions imposed by the IOC, the earliest at which she would be considered is Tokyo in 2020.

While she was calm in the face of such attention Tareq admitted her presence catches people out.

“The other swimmers are often surprised, they ask me my name and how old I am and then they are like, ‘are you swimming here!?’”

Halsall was one of those swimmers. The 25-year-old moved into the semifinals with the fifth fastest time this morning.

Of Tareq, she said: “I don’t know what to make of it to be honest. She is dinky. I was like ‘what?’. I didn’t even notice there was someone in the lane. Bless her, good on her, just have a pop, why not? If that’s what she wants to do compete, then fair play, have a go.”