The Seychelles boasts 491 km of coastline, but Dwayne Didon grew up in a village at the top of a mountain and only learned to swim at the age of nine when he started classes at a local pool.

He quickly made up for the late start, becoming one of the best swimmers in his east African archipelago nation in just four years, and at 13 and 11 months is the youngest male athlete competing here.

Only Antoinette Guedia from Cameroon, 12 years old and 10 months and also competing in freestyle swimming, is younger.

“When my parents told me I might be going to the Olympics I thought it couldn’t be true,” said Didon, whose budding talent was quickly spotted by his swimming teachers who moved him up from a 25-metre to a 50-metre pool.

The soft-spoken teenager found out two months ago that his nomination by the international swimming federation (FINA) had been successful, meaning he would compete in the same Olympic Water Cube pool as world record-breakers such as Michael Phelps.

“When my friends at school heard the news they thought I was playing a joke on them,” he said. “It’s like a dream.”

Push-ups and papayas

The Seychelles is an Indian Ocean paradise of some 115 islands near Madagascar where wealthy foreign tourists flock to wallow in the warm turquoise sea. Despite fishing being the main local industry after tourism, many locals never learn to swim.

Didon’s family lives a half-hour drive from the ocean, in the village of La Misere — which ironically translates as Misery — one of the coolest spots on the main island, Mahe, and home to the rare and bizarrely named jellyfish tree.

... contd.