Jason Wilson First Bajan Triathlete To Qualify For Olympics

Jason Wilson will represent Barbados this summer at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

At the 2012 London Olympic Games, the nation of Barbados had just six athletes total competing across all 26 sports that were represented. The six athletes competed in just three sports—athletics, judo and swimming.

Six athletes to compete for an entire nation—that is equivalent to the amount of triathletes Great Britain saw race during the very same London Games.

Barbados is a small island country off the Atlantic Ocean in the Caribbean, so it is not uncommon for the number of athletes sent to the Olympic Games to mimic the size of the country. As such, in the past four Olympic Games that has featured triathlon, Barbados has never qualified an athlete to compete.

But this year, that is all about to change. At the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, Barbados native Jason Wilson will make history as the first Bajan triathlete to ever compete at an Olympic Games.

After missing out on going to the Olympics at the London Games in 2012 by just a few points, his mind over the last four years has been geared towards making it to Rio.

This Olympic quad, Wilson had to fight to the very last qualification race at World Triathlon Yokohama for his Olympic fate to be determined. But this go round, Wilson ensure he was on the right side of the list with enough points to qualify.

“Rio has always been a goal for me. We tried to qualify for London very last minute in 2011 and I missed qualifying for the “new flag” by a couple of points, so going into Rio our goal was to always qualify,” Wilson said.

Read more: Triathlon.org

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