Kyle Swan (born 28 March 1999) is an Australian

racewalking Racewalking, or race walking, is a long-distance discipline within the sport of athletics. Although a foot race, it is different from running in that one foot must appear to be in contact with the ground at all times. Race judges carefully asse ...

athlete. He qualified to represent Australia at the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

2021, competing in men's 20 kilometres walk. Swan managed to finish the race. He came 36th with a time of 1:27.55., nearly 4 minutes off his PB This was 6:50 behind the eventual winner Massimo Stano of Italy.

Early years

When Swan was only 6 years old he started watching his brother at

Little Athletics Little Athletics is an Australian activity program that involves modified athletics events for children aged 3 to 16 in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Northern Territory); 3 ...

. He joined and found that he ran the 800m easily. (This was the longest distance for children of his age). His first coach was Fran Attard. He made his junior international debut aged 16 at the 2015 World Youth (U18) Championships.

Achievements

In 2018, Swan was the first Aussie across the line in 10th place in the junior event at the

World Race Walking Cup The World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships is a racewalking event organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations. It has been held since 1961, and generally on a biennial basis. Women first entered the 1979 edition. ...

in China. Swan helped Australia to bronze in the team event. Two months later he competed in the World U20 Championships in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

where he came sixth in a time of 41:24.12. As a senior athlete Swan now needed to race over twice the distance, 20 km, and it took some time to adjust. By December, 2019 he managed a 1:23.53. In 2021 he set track best times over 5000m and 10,000m and had two solid walks just outside his 20 km PB, allowing him to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

References

External links

* 1999 births Living people Australian male racewalkers Athletes (track and field) at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic athletes for Australia 21st-century Australian people Place of birth missing (living people) World Athletics Championships athletes for Australia {{Australia-athletics-bio-stub