LILLIAN NAKAYIMA meets Jackson Niyomugabo and tells his passion for swimming Jackson Niyomugabo was in primary four when his father one evening told him to forget all about education. He loved education and swimming. He says he wanted to study and become powerful in society. Now with no education, he had one option; swimming. “I was a good swimmer at a tender age. Many people encouraged me to exploit my talent to the full,” Niyomugabo says in an interview last week. Niyomugabo’s father could not afford to keep him in school. But he found his passion and it was about swimming.“Swimming has become part of my life,” Niyomugabo says excitedly. He says swimming is an activity that can be both useful and recreational. “Without water, I think I would faint.” To many of us, swimming is just a luxury, an activity we do to pass time or maybe to have fun, but to Niyomugabo, it is a profession. Niyomugabo’s day is tightly scheduled since he wakes up as early as 6pm to begin his swimming trainings so that he can spare some time to coach the little children that he is preparing to participate for the swimming competitions that will take place in Singapore. Niyomugabo has been an all time competition winner since he was only 12 years. “I started swimming when I was 5 and never looked back since then,” says Niyomugabo. Being born in The Western Province, he got the advantage of improvising Lake Kivu for all his debuts. “I was nine years of age when I won my very first award in swimming at the distict level, this was followed by the air ticket to Nairobi when I was 12,”says Niyomugabo and at the age of 20, Niyomugabo won swimming competitions at the national level for more than 4 times though he is not certain about how many times he has participated. The three significant times, Niyomugabo remembers is when he had qualified to go to Beijing in 2005 though he never went there. He later went to Austria along with two other Rwandan swimmers and then to Beijing lately where he ran second in his group. “In Austria, I was as quick as 29 minutes but in Beijing, I was 27 seconds quick via swimming a distance of 50 metres,” Niyomugabo says proudly. Born into a family of 7, Niyomugabo is the third born and has succeeded in training his siblings in swimming and he is convinced that they will be able to compete at the national level. Niyomugabo’s desire is to see the swimming sport given more value in Rwanda like other sports. “Swimming hasn’t been valued,” he complains. As he walks to the Lake Kivu every morning, his dream remains the same and will never change, “Changing Rwanda’s tragic past of the 1994 genocide to a world of gifted swimmers at the international level,” Niyomugabo adds. Ends
