RIO DE JANEIRO _ Gaurika Singh of Nepal showed up last week at Rio's Estadio Aquatico Olimpico for swimming practice. She smiled at the security officer, flashing her braces.
He shook his head. Sorry, athletes only.
Singh flashed her credential. She's an athlete.
She's also 13.
The youngest of the nearly 11,000 athletes at these Summer Games splashed into the pool on Sunday afternoon, in Heat 1 of the women's 100-meter backstroke. Women's? She turns 14 in November. She's not in high school. She has a Facebook page that her parents registered for her "because I was underage." Zimbabwean backstroke star Kirsty Coventry, who swam three heats later, was a sophomore at Auburn when Singh was born.
"It's quite cool," Singh said, "a bit unreal."
Singh is here as part of the universality program administered by FINA, the sport's world governing body, allowing entrance to one male and female swimmer from countries that don't meet international qualifying standards. Nepal sent 17-year-old Sirish Gurung in the 100 free and the 13-year-old Singh in the 100 back, FINA having no age minimums (a 10-year-old representing Bahrain competed at the 2015 World Championships).
In all, Nepal has seven athletes in Rio. These are its 13th Summer Games and it has won two medals, although neither count in official tallies. One came in 1924, when a gold medal for alpinism or mountaineering was awarded to Brit Charles Granville Bruce for his 1922 Mount Everest expedition that included Nepal's Naik Tejbir Bura. The other was a bronze in taekwondo in 1988, when it was an exhibition sport.
On Sunday, Singh wore a green FINA cap and swam in a three-person heat against Evelina Afoa of Samoa and Rita Zequiri of Kosova. She touched first in 1 minute, 8.12 seconds _ .31 ahead of Afoa but .81 slower than the Nepalese national record she set in February.
"It was amazing just looking up on that board and seeing my time," Singh said. "I swam incredibly hard and hopefully I made my country proud of me."
Singh was born in Nepal but moved to the United Kingdom at age 2 when her father, a urologist, got jobs in hospitals in Scotland and England. She currently attends Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls, one of London's most exclusive and selective schools. Habs Girls was founded in 1875, has a headmistress named Biddie O'Connor and requires an entry test, interview and reference. About one in 10 applicants is accepted. One of her classmates is starring in the West End musical Matilda; another played in Junior Wimbledon.
Just don't call her English, accent aside.
"I'm not English so there's not much point being Nepalese and representing Britain," Singh said last week. "I'm Nepalese."
She returns about twice a year, regularly swimming in the Nepal national championships. Last year she was in the capital of Kathmandu, preparing for nationals, when the 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck shortly before noon on April 25 and killed more than 8,000, including 21 from an avalanche on Everest.
Singh was on the fifth floor of an office, playing table tennis with a friend. They scrambled under the table.
"After the earthquake stopped," Singh said, "we went outside and saw that many buildings had collapsed. Thankfully, nothing happened to our house. But many lives were lost. It was really traumatic."
Water from a pond in front of their house had spilled out. Fish were flopping on the ground.
The nationals were postponed and Singh flew home. But it moved her enough that she became an ambassador for the Shanti Education Initiative, a nonprofit organization rebuilding about 90 schools destroyed by the quake. She holds 10 Nepalese records _ seven in individual events, three in relays _ and with each comes a modest bonus. She's donated that to the Shanti project, and her parents matched it. Habs Girls also held a fundraiser.
"I have been privileged to go to good school," Singh said. "Many people of my age have other stories ... I want to do whatever I can to help them."
There were 34 entrants in the 100 back spread across five heats Sunday, and the top 16 advanced to the semifinals. The 5-foot-6, 99-pound Singh wasn't one of them, despite having a national record (1:07.31) 10 seconds faster than the Nepalese men's equivalent and winning four medals at the Southeast Asia Games in February. In Rio she was 31st, ahead of swimmers from Samoa, Kenya and Kosovo.
Kathleen Baker had the day's best time of 58.84, nearly 10 seconds faster. Fellow American Olivia Smoliga was sixth in 59.60.
"I had no idea she was that young, that's awesome," said Smoliga, 21, who starts her senior year at Georgia in a few weeks. "At 13, I was just swimming club meets. I was finishing middle school. That's so incredible for her to be here."
Singh could be in her third Olympics at age 21.
"It's massive, it's amazing," Singh said of her first one. "I learned how all the athletes have come here as one and they're all treated the same."
Assuming, of course, you show your credential.
