Ugandan swimmer Joshua Ekirikubinza Tibatemwa almost made it to the next round (Semi finals) of the 50m freestyle swimming in the Rio 2016 Olympics on Thursday but was only 3.88 seconds late.
The 19-year-old recorded 25.98 seconds to beat Bururndi’s Billy Scott Irakoze and Rwanda’s Eloi Imaniraguha who posted 26.36 and 26.43 seconds respectively in lanes 8 and 9.
Tanzania’s Hilal Hemed won the heat with 23.70 seconds followed by Bahrain’s Farhan Farhan. Overall Joshua was 64th out of 85 swimmers in 11 heats.
The first 16 swimmers qualified for the semi finals and the best; Andrii Govorov from Ukraine made 21.49 seconds that no one could beat among the rest in this category.
Joshua joins Ugandan Boxer Kennedy Katende, and fellow Swimmer Jamila Lunkuse who have already exited the championships in Rio, Brazil.