ROAONKE, Va. – Over the past week we’ve highlighted swimming athletes competing for a spot on team USA for the Paris Olympics. But there are some Virginia Tech athletes that have qualified for different countries including Ian Ho.
It was a few years ago when the Blacksburg native qualified for team Hong Kong for the Tokyo games. Now in his fifth year of eligibility, Ho is back stronger than ever ready to take on the world stage again having already qualified for the Paris games.
“Everything about this Olympics is so different from last Olympics,” Ho said. “It’s not a Covid year, there will actually be spectators, my family is coming and my girlfriend is coming, so that’s really exciting. And then the whole qualification., Last time I was down to the wire. This time I qualified within the first month, so just being able to fine-tune everything about my race. I think the metal game for me has been really big since the last Olympics. I’ve really been able to understand what I need to do mentally in preparing for a race , what I’m doing behind the blocks in the ready room with my warm ups to be able to swim as fast as I can. It’s exciting to see and to have come from Christiansburg Aquatic Center and be able to keep training in my home pool and this time I will be leaving from Blacksburg and not Hong Kong, so that will be exciting as well.
Ho will be competing in the 50 and 100 meter freestyle events. The Hokies have student-athletes from upwards of 5-6 other countries looking to book a trip to Paris like Yousseff Ramadan for Egypt and Carmen Sastre who has qualified for two events for Spain.