The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

RIO Janeiro, Brazil – Joanna Evans completed her first Olympic Games with a sixth place finish in her heat of the women's 800 metres freestyle on Thursday.

The performance for the 18-year-old rising star came after she posted her second Bahamian national record in the women's 200m freestyle to add to her opening achievement in the 400m free.

Although it was not what she anticipated, Evans said she will walk away from the 2016 Olympic Games knowing that she gave it her best shot. She ended up sixth in the second of three heats of the 16 lap race in eight minutes and 42.93 seconds, well off her personal best of 8:32.19.

Swimming out of lane eight at the National Olympic Stadium, Evans ended up trailing the field that saw Mirela Belmonte Garcia from Spain touch the wall first in 8:25.55.

"Today obviously didn't look as great as I would have liked it to be, but if you look at it, from the games I had, realistically for a first, I can't complain," the 18-year-old Evans said. "I would have liked more out of it today, but things happened."

Evans, the second of the three Bahamians now done at the games, said she never really got going into the race and it showed up in her finish.

"I feel like the 800 is one of those things, if you don't start out from the beginning, it's going to really hard to hold on, especially with a field like that. It happens, but you just have to move on from it."

During the course of the race, Evans dropped from third to fourth and then sixth. She said it's just “how the cookie crumbles”. But she takes solace in the fact that she will leave here with two lifetime best performances after lowering two of her Bahamian national records.

"For the first one, I will take it," she insisted. "It's just back to the drawing board for next time."

Next time is the 2020 Olympics in Toyko, Japan when Evans will hopefully be completed with her tenure at the University of Texas and she can focus on being better prepared for the world's biggest sporting stage.

Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace, coming off her seventh place finish in her heat of the women's 100m preliminaries on Wednesday, is the final medal hope of the Bahamas swim team. She will be in her specialty event, the women's 50m, on Friday when she contests the last of 12 heats in lane three.

Dustin Tynes, the other member of the team, competed in Saturday, finishing seventh in his heat of the men's 100m breaststroke for 44th place overall.