THIS week we look at another aspiring Olympian. A determined, dedicated and disciplined young lady with great prospects, who began shining as a national swimmer last year. She is young Aleka Persaud, a prolific swimmer with multiple age-group national records. Thus far, Persaud has performed only at the local and regional levels, but she has already proven that she is quite the force to be reckoned with. The only thing stopping her from being Guyana’s top female swimmer is time.
After training since the age of three, Aleka burst to the fore last year at just nine years old and was Guyana’s most accomplished swimmer on the Goodwill Swim Meet team last year.
Persaud landed her five gold and one silver medal; one of those gold medals was won in a record- breaking performance. She holds the 36.20 seconds record in the girls’ 8 and under 50m butterfly at the Goodwill Swim Meet.

That performance followed remarkable local presentations, by Aleka last year, when she dominated the 8 and under category. Aleka holds all of the national records of the girls’ 8 and under category, and is currently blazing a trail in the 9 – 10 category.
Many who have met this petite New Guyana School student is astounded by just how driven, and passionate she is about being a swimmer. She sets strategic goals that she wants to accomplish, times she wants to achieve, always looking out to better her own times.
Despite her small size and age, she’s working wonders at balancing her training and her academics, so much so that she has even taken up doing taekwondo over the past year.
“She’s small but she’s extremely strong for her age. She has the desire and the right attitude. She’s one of the most talented swimmers I’ve seen in a number of years, she has surpassed any other Guyanese swimmer in terms of her time, her attitude is head on, she wants to win, she goes out there to win, she works hard, she’s diligent, she just doesn’t give up,” said her coach Sean Baksh.
Baksh says Aleka is just a natural, born swimmer.
“And she’s well adapted for water,” he noted.
Her dad, president of the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA), Ivan Persaud, says she is one competitive young lady.
“She’s very competitive, she’s very serious about it,” Ivan commented.
Now she has her sights set on being Guyana’s youngest Olympian. And she just might be if she makes Tokyo 2020, when she will be just 14 years old. Guyana’s youngest Olympian has been Britany van Lange, also a swimmer, who was just 16 years old when she represented Guyana at the 2012 London Olympics.