Honey Osrin shares her love for swimming ahead of Olympic Games debut

With the Paris 2024 Olympic Games around the corner, we’re taking a closer look at some of our aquatics athletes who are representing Team GB in the French capital this summer.

Honey Osrin is hoping to make the ‘close knit’ swimming community proud when she makes her Olympic debut at Paris 2024.

The South African born swimmer made the move to Plymouth at the age of 13 where her young swimming career has gone from strength to strength.

She’s been a regular member of Swim England’s Performance squads since 2019, where she went on to become a two time silver medallist at the European Junior Championships that same year.

She’s taken home a number of medals from the British Summer Championships in recent years and produced one of the major breakout swims at the Speedo Aquatics GB Swimming Championships earlier this year.

Osrin stormed to victory in an Olympic nomination time of 2:08.37 to win gold in the Women’s 200m Backstroke.

As a result, the now Loughborough University swimmer guaranteed her place on the Eurostar for her debut Games and admits that her love for the sport comes from being able to train with her friends day in and day out.

She said: “I think people think it’s (swimming) all about improving and focusing on bettering your time but for me it was always about just training with my friends day in, day out.

“I think the swimming community is such a great one. It’s really, really close knit. Like I’ll go to a swimming competition and I know like more than half the people there.”

‘Their dream as much as mine’

Osrin, who balances her swimming with studying criminology at Loughborough, swim at the Games will mark her first senior international appearance.

It completes a dream for the 21-year-old which was shown by the huge smile on her face when she touched the wall to win gold at the London Aquatics Centre.

She admitted that qualifying for Paris was an emotional moment for both her and her family.

“It just means everything. It’s everyone’s dream to go to the Olympics, and I’m ecstatic.

“My friends and family were all over the moon. I think it’s their dream as much as mine and they’ve put in so much work as well to support me.

“I’m just really excited. I’m trying to enjoy the experience as much as possible, stay calm and have fun.

“The aim is to obviously go in there and enjoy it but my main goal is to make a final and then sort of just see what happens from then.”

The Women’s 200m Backstroke gets underway with heats on Thursday 1 August with the semi-finals taking place later that evening. The final will be held a day later on Friday 2 August.