Best friends Diop and Frank ready to represent Senegal and Uruguay at 2024 Olympics

There will be only seven athletes and only two swimmers representing Senegal at the 2024 Olympic Games, which begin Friday. Florida International’s Oumy Diop is one of those swimmers, and she’s hoping to put her parent’s home country on the map.

“I’m really excited to compete right now,” Diop said. “I’m realizing more and more, day after day, that I’m gonna compete in the Olympics.”

Senegal covers approximately 76,000 square miles, which is about the size of South Dakota. Its relatively small population of 17.3 million people means that it is harder to attain representation in The Games. But despite being born and raised in France, Diop decided she wanted to represent her parent’s home country.

“It’s such a big honor for me because since I was a child, I’ve always gone to Senegal during the holidays,” Diop said. “I just enjoy the little moments, the holidays and the culture that we have there. I’m just proud to be able to represent Senegal.”

Diop first started swimming when she was 5 years old in France, where students in early grades must complete a cycle in a sport. Diop chose swimming and her mother believed that she enjoyed the sport, and decided to enroll her on a competitive club team.

Diop eventually grew to become one of the most accomplished African swimmers her age, owning seven national swimming records in Senegal.

When it came time to choose a college, Diop elected to compete in the United States for FIU.

“I was really interested to come to the U.S. to see how everything worked here,” Diop said. “From France, we could tell the NCAAs were such a big thing. I specifically chose FIU because of the campus, the weather, the coaching staff and my teammates.”

Diop told the Herald that her training at FIU focused on shorter distances, which helped her refine her technique.

“It was a bit difficult in the beginning because we were training in yards, which is pretty short because for example, at the Olympics, we swim in 50 meter laps,” Diop said. “But swimming in yards every single day helped me get better in every single detail such as the underwater, the turns and my start.”

While Diop credits FIU for her improvement in the water, it was on campus where she met one of her best friends in Uruguayan Olympic swimmer Nicole Frank.

“She’s my best friend, we’re super close,” Diop said. “I’m looking forward to leaving for the Olympics with her because it’s going to be amazing.”

Frank’s grandmother, originally from Uruguay, was a swimmer in Germany who qualified for the 1940 Olympics. But because of World War II, the Olympics were canceled. Frank’s grandmother returned to Uruguay, but was never able to see out her Olympic dreams. Frank already made her Olympic debut during the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, placing 27th overall in the 200 individual medley.

“For Tokyo, I always say that those Olympics were dedicated to [my grandmother],” Frank said. “I think this year it’s the same thing, but it’s not only for her, but also for my other grandma who passed away two years ago.”

“I think carrying on the legacy, I don’t have it on my mind all the time, but it always resides in the back,” Frank said. “It’s really motivating to carry on the legacy. Even though she’s not with us right now, I know she’s looking down from above.”

According to Frank, the FIU coaching staff has been integral to improving her times in the 200m IM.

“If I wasn’t training at FIU and wasn’t receiving the type of training I got there, I would probably not achieve the times that I did,” Frank said.

Frank said that she faced a lot of mental adversity during the Olympic qualification process, but the support her FIU coaches gave her helped her get through it.

“Physically, the [coaches] trained me very well and mentally they gave me a lot of support,” Frank said.

While both Frank and Diop are both proud to be competing for countries that are typically under-represented in the Olympics, they also take a lot of pride in being able to represent FIU at the highest level of sports.

“At least for me and I think for Oumy, I think being able to represent our school together is really important,” Frank said. “We feel a lot of support from athletics and the school since we’ve qualified. We feel like we matter to the school and to athletics. I think that’s one of the best things to receive.”