For Team GB’s celebration of Black History Month, Summer and Winter Olympian Montell Douglas is speaking with three Team GB trailblazers about their experiences. In this first instalment, Montell meets swimmer Eva Okaro.
Picture it: you are 17 years old, and you are just about to make history as the first Black British woman to swim in the pool at an Olympic Games.
So, what are you thinking about?
Well, understandably, all Eva Okaro was thinking about was competing, and not the momentous occasion that would see her go into the record books.
“I was definitely not thinking that I was going out to make history,” Okaro said. “I was thinking, Oh my god, I am so nervous!
“But I don’t think I have ever tried as hard as I did in that race. When I got out of the pool, I was literally like falling apart, I was crumbling.
“I couldn’t walk up the stairs. I was gripping onto that railing, trying to walk up the stairs, but it was more like another swim in the bag rather than I’m doing this for not just me, but for other people, I was just thinking about racing and being present.”
Just over a year on from being part of the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay team at Paris, Okaro is embarking on a new chapter of her career at the University of Texas in Austin.
As she adjusts to life in the NCAA set-up, the now 18-year-old is already using her Olympic experience to spur her on to more.
She added: “I think it has sunken in now, obviously, at the time, it definitely hadn’t.
“But when I got back to school in September and stuff and everyone was like ‘I go to school with an Olympian’, that was when it sunk in.
“Now, it doesn’t feel like crazy special in any way because I went for a relay and it was on the first day, and I didn’t swim anything after that. I know I did get the whole experience, but I wanted a bit more.
“I think it was a really good first introduction into the senior world and senior racing. It was a great experience racing against some of the best in the world and I really did enjoy it, but I do think that I am ready for what’s next.”
Okaro and her twin sister Izabella were taught to swim at a young age with her father, who is from Nigeria, and mother, who is Polish, believing it to be an important life skill.
The Kent native admitted she was not particularly aware that she and her sister were the only black people in the pool.
But competing internationally was when she first saw other people like her on elite swimming teams. It is why Okaro is reluctant to celebrate her achievement as the first black female swimmer in the pool.
“I do understand I was the first black female swimmer in the pool for GB, but I also think that it shouldn’t have to be like that," she said.
It is a feeling Montell Douglas is well aware of – Douglas made history as the first British woman to compete at both a Summer and Winter Olympic Games.
Douglas said: “From one history maker to another, going in and making history as the first British female to do something, it does have that connotation of actually, you were the first Black British woman, I was the first woman to do it, and you represent everyone that comes before and after you that maybe even tried to and couldn’t.
“But also, it is really powerful because there are real barriers in terms of culture and race, and it is important because of those things.”
Despite saying that, Okaro has become aware of the position she has in the sporting world.
It all came to the fore at the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships earlier this year.
“It is not always in the back of my head,” she said. “When I was at trials, there was this little girl who came up to me, three times in the meet, she was like ‘I absolutely love you, you are the reason I am still swimming’ and things like that.
“Then I do think about it a bit, oh well, I just need to keep being myself and keep performing and be that person for these younger athletes.”