A love for ice cream took Nigerian swimmer Adaku Nwandu to the Olympics

SINGAPORE – Home is many places for swimmer Adaku Nwandu, who was born in China, lives in Singapore and wears the Nigeria flag on her swimsuit.

And it is at her current home in Singapore that the 17-year-old is making her debut at the World Aquatics Championships (WCH).

In the second heat of the 100m freestyle at the WCH Arena, the teenager, who has a Nigerian father and Chinese mother, led at the turn before finishing third in 1min 0.89sec – she eventually placed 59th out of 82 athletes overall.

After her race, Adaku shared with The Straits Times that she was born and raised in Shanghai, and started swimming when she was eight. Interestingly, it was ice cream that kept her in the sport.

Adaku, who still has the 50m freestyle heats on Aug 2, said: “At a school competition, I didn’t do so well and I asked my dad if we could make a deal. He said if I do better, he would buy me ice cream once every week, and that’s a promise we have kept with each other. And that’s what brought me here.”

In 2023, the family moved to Singapore due to her mother’s work posting. With her fluent Mandarin and love for Asian and spicy food, it did not take long for her to pick up Singlish and enjoy local delights like chicken rice and chilli crab.

She said: “We came here mainly because of my mother’s work, and also because the swimming scene back where I lived in China was a little bit toxic, so she also thought Singapore would be a new experience and better for my swimming.”

By then, she had already committed to representing Nigeria after its aquatics association contacted her after the National Sports Festival in Asaba, where the then 16-year-old was part of the national record-breaking women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team.

But Singapore is where she has been honing her swimming skills, as she has set her 50m and 100m freestyle long- and short-course Nigeria national records at meets here.

Noting her improvements, Singapore swimming coach and performance director Gary Tan said: “Adaku has been participating in our system for a while, and we hope it helps her develop as a swimmer and achieve what she wants while training in Singapore with her school (German European School Singapore).”

For someone who is inspired by Olympic champions David Popovici, Caeleb Dressel and Adam Peaty for “their dedication and the way they are able to take breaks for themselves to improve and get back to the water”, qualifying for Paris 2024 on ranking points was a dream come true.

Her Olympic debut was also unforgettable as her swimsuit ripped 20 minutes before her 50m freestyle heat, but she managed to finish second in her heat and 33rd out of 78th overall in 26.62 seconds, just 0.03 of a second off her personal best.

Back in Singapore, Adaku, who is in the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme at her school, realised that she needed more of such resilience to reach her goals.

The swimmer, who also plays for the school’s volleyball team, said: “I had a lot of improvement the first year I came to Singapore. But this past year has been especially hard for me with family problems and also school. The workload in my first year of IB made it hard to balance training and school.

“Especially in the next year, I want to focus more on swimming and try to get some new personal bests because this year I just plateaued. I’m looking forward to training harder and preparing for my next competition, and hopefully qualify for the next Olympics.”