Shropshire Star

Shropshire sensation Hector Pardoe set for Tokyo Olympics

Shropshire swimming star Hector Pardoe is expected to book his place on Team GB’s endurance team for Tokyo 2020 after a stunning qualification win.

Published
Last updated

The 20-year-old, who is from Wrexham but has swam for both Whitchurch Wasps and Ellesmere College Titans, stormed to victory in a field of 63 at an Marathon Swimming Olympic 10,000m Qualification event in Setubal, Portugal.

The victory is a milestone one for the young prodigy as he builds on an impressive year in time to book his spot at the delayed showpiece in Japan this summer.

Only one swimmer per country can earn a qualification spot, with the nine highest-placed athletes in both the men’s and women’s races securing their nation a place at the Games. The victory, which was sealed by a margin of five seconds to Greece’s Athanasios Kynigakis, sees Pardoe nominated to Team GB status. The official squad for the Games is set to be confirmed by Team GB today.

“Obviously, I’m ecstatic to get the qualification spot but also to get the win on top of that,” a delighted Pardoe admitted. “I was thinking before the race that I was a contender for winning the race, but the pressure and my mind were more focused on the qualification spot. I can’t tell you have many times I’ve dreamt of winning this race.

“Despite it being a really tough race, with frustrating conditions including strong currents, high winds and big waves, I felt good in the water throughout.”

Pardoe started his swimming career at Whitchurch Wasps aged just five and moved on to Ellesmere College’s programme a year later. He was the first Team GB swimmer to win a medal at the World Junior Open Water Championships, taking bronze in 2017.

The Portuguese event featured 110 of the world’s top distance swimmers from all five continents and 47 national federations. And the Welsh youngster swam an intelligent, tactical race in baking hot conditions in Setubal. He found himself third going into the final of five 2,000m laps before upping the ante and overhauling Japan’s Takeshi Toyoda and Kynigakis for the win.

Pardoe has already achieved an eighth-placed finish at the European Championships in Hungary in May this year, as well as seventh at the Fina World Series Marathon in Doha in March.

Last September he smashed a British marathon swimming record, becoming the first Brit to dip under five hours for a 25,000-metre open water swim at the French National Championships, around the time he was awarded a place on British Swimming’s World Class Programme.

He is currently training for an Olympic spot in Montpellier under coach Phillipe Lucas and alongside some of the medal-winning greats of endurance swimming. “The feeling is indescribable!” Pardoe beamed. “After taking such a big risk moving my life to France, not speaking the language, having to fend for myself in a foreign country – which was made even harder by the Covid restrictions and not being able to see my family for six months at a time.

“Then of course the intensity of my training, averaging 85k every week for the last two years, it all has resulted in something that I’m so proud of.”