Two years ago, she swam her first lengths in a local competition in the Comoros, an archipelago off the coast of East Africa. Today, Maesha Saadi is training with the Isère club Vienne Condrieu Olympique to participate in the Paris Olympic Games. She will line up at the start of the 50m freestyle on August 3, 2024.
Franco-Comorian, she grew up in Vienna before moving to the Comoros when she was 11 years old. She was spotted somewhat by chance by the National Olympic Committee of the archipelago. After months of training managed remotely by one of the Viennese coaches, the teenager returned to train in France in September 2023, at the Saint-Romain-en-Gal nautical stadium.
Juggling classes and training
Every day after school, she swims laps. “If we organize ourselves well, it’s entirely doable so it’s fine” she assures with a smile. “There’s a bit of stress, obviously, but there’s still a little over two months to prepare so I know it’s going to go well.”
She lives with her grandmother, Michèle, who comes from time to time to swim at the same time as her granddaughter. “I never would have imagined” she says, “even more so in this discipline of swimming because she was passionate about tennis! Swimming is very recent, I didn’t expect her to make the Olympics at all!”
Maesha also never imagined swimming with the greatest swimming champions. It is thanks to the principle of universality, “a system which allows small countries in terms of infrastructure, which do not have the same chances of success as large nations, to participate in the Olympic Games” explains the swimmer. She did not need to meet the minimum requirements to be selected. “As I am one of the best in my country, that allows me to go there.”
Objective: less than 30 seconds over 50 meters
Once spotted by the National Olympic Committee of the Comoros Islands, Maesha obtained a scholarship. Participating in the Olympic Games, especially in France, is quite a symbol. “It allows me to represent a small country on an international scale. I think it’s great that it’s in France, it’s really nice to be able to represent one of my countries while being in the other” smiles the teenager, “and then it allows us to represent girls in sport.”
Very few young women play sports in the Comoros. Maesha would like to inspire them by going under 30 seconds in the 50m at the Olympic Games in early August. In January, she set her personal best at 30 seconds and 91 hundredths.
