Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Award­ed Ju­nior Sports­woman of the Year (2024) by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee, 17-year-old Zuri Fer­gu­son is mak­ing waves in the in­ter­na­tion­al swim­ming are­na. Fer­gu­son has been a mul­ti­ple-time cham­pi­on at events like the CC­CAN and CARIF­TA Cham­pi­onships, ex­celling in the 100m back­stroke event.

Now an Olympian, Fer­gu­son was the youngest ath­lete proud­ly rep­re­sent­ing T&T in the XXXI­II Olympic Games in 2024. Even at a young age, Fer­gu­son ex­udes con­fi­dence, elo­quence, and self-as­sur­ance as she sits with Guardian Me­dia WE mag­a­zine to speak about her ac­com­plished swim­ming ca­reer.

Born and raised in At­tle­boro, Mass­a­chu­setts, to two proud Tri­ni par­ents, Fer­gu­son be­gan swim­ming at three years old and joined her first swim team at five. “My par­ents thought it was im­por­tant for me to have the ba­sic skill of swim­ming and keep­ing my­self afloat,” she says, but lit­tle did they know, it was on­ly the be­gin­ning of her love af­fair with the pool.

Since start­ing com­pet­i­tive swim­ming, Fer­gu­son worked her way up from lo­cal cham­pi­onships to US na­tion­al-lev­el com­pe­ti­tions to US Olympic Tri­als in 2021. In Feb­ru­ary 2024, in what she de­scribes as a “spe­cial mo­ment for me,” she be­gan swim­ming for the T&T Na­tion­al team, which was made even sweet­er by get­ting to know her team­mates and trav­el­ling for meets with them.

“Com­pet­ing in the Olympics has al­ways been a dream of mine since I start­ed swim­ming. To achieve it was so ful­fill­ing,” Fer­gu­son mus­es. Her ex­pe­ri­ence at the Olympic Games was a ma­jor high­light in her ca­reer, as she con­sid­ered her­self lucky to be sur­round­ed by elite ath­letes who, sim­i­lar to her, have put so much time and ded­i­ca­tion in­to ex­celling at their re­spec­tive sports.

On the day of her race, Fer­gu­son “felt a lot less ner­vous than I ever had in the past. Def­i­nite­ly it was the calmest I had been for the whole sum­mer cir­cuit.”

Armed with her calm and steady mind­set, she ex­celled to place a re­mark­able third in her 100m heat. To ar­rive at a place where she has the abil­i­ty to con­trol her nerves, Fer­gu­son has not on­ly worked hard to de­vel­op her tal­ent in the pool but has al­so poured her­self in­to de­vel­op­ing a tough com­peti­tor men­tal­i­ty.

“A chal­lenge has been the strug­gle to cre­ate goals for my­self in­stead of ex­pec­ta­tions. Falling short of my ex­pec­ta­tions would leave me be­ing harsh on my­self, bring a lot more nerves, and not al­low me to swim to my full ca­pa­bil­i­ty.” Work­ing to over­come these men­tal hur­dles has been a high­light for her, “as I’m more able to en­joy rac­ing and be­ing in the pool.”

An­oth­er of her high­lights has been the sheer num­ber of amaz­ing peo­ple she has met on the pool deck and the com­mu­ni­ty that swim­ming has giv­en her. With a per­son­al best of one minute one sec­ond in the 100m back­stroke, the goal she is fo­cused on at the mo­ment is push­ing her swim­ming abil­i­ty to the lim­it and be­com­ing faster in her event.

Fer­gu­son’s in­ten­sive train­ing sched­ule—sev­en days a week for hours at a time—is on­ly half of the puz­zle, as she al­so seeks to ex­cel aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly. De­scrib­ing her­self as a “math brain,” she al­so likes class­es that chal­lenge her and en­cour­age her aca­d­e­m­ic growth. The bal­anc­ing act re­quires “a lot of late nights, work­ing on the week­end, and try­ing to get ahead in my stud­ies as much as pos­si­ble.”

Her ded­i­ca­tion con­tin­ues to pay off as she is now poised to at­tend the Uni­ver­si­ty of Flori­da to swim for the next four years. Her grat­i­tude for her sup­port team, in­clud­ing her fam­i­ly and coach­es, is bound­less, and she in­sists that for any young woman in­ter­est­ed in sport, hav­ing a com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple be­hind you is cru­cial. An­oth­er piece of ad­vice she lives by is to “Al­ways love what you’re do­ing. Make sure you’re hav­ing fun.” Hav­ing won the Ju­nior Sports­woman of the Year award, she feels “ho­n­oured to not on­ly be recog­nised but to have an award from the coun­try of my par­ents and make them proud.”

With her im­pres­sive track record and de­ter­mi­na­tion, Fer­gu­son is poised for a bright fu­ture in swim­ming, aim­ing to build on her Olympic ex­pe­ri­ence and achieve even greater heights in the sport.