ISRAEL21c

Born in 1989 in Jerusalem, Nimrod Shapira Bar-On is a former Arizona Wildcat swimmer, who decided to pass on this season’s NCAA swim meets to focus on preparing for the Olympics.

This will be the second time around for his specialty, the 100 and 200 meter freestyle swims. In 2008 in China, Shapira Bar-On set a national record for Israel where he swam 49.10, coming in at spot 26, and in the 200-meter swim he came in at spot 15 in the first heat with a time of 1:48:16.

During the 2008 Olympics he became the only Israeli swimmer to ever make it to the semi-finals at any Olympics games.

It was a chance knee accident at age 11 that forced Shapira Bar-On to go from competitive basketball playing to swimming.