Rio Olympic Games opening ceremony - Laird ranked 27th in 100m backstroke, Allisop loses to Joyce |09 August 2016

Female swimmer Alexus Laird was the first Seychellois athlete in action on Sunday at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and was followed by boxer Andrique Allisop.

And they are both out of the Games.

In the pool of the Olympic Aquatics Stadium, Laird clocked 1 minute 03.33 seconds (1:03.33) to finish third in her heat and 27th overall out of 34 swimmers.

Laird, who achieved the ‘B’ standard in the 100 metres backstroke with a time of 1:02.33 in an event in December 2015, was invited by Fina (Fédération internationale de natation) to compete at the Olympics as one of the athletes who have achieved an Olympic selection time or ‘B’ time.

This is her first appearance at the Olympics.

Brazilian Etiene Medeiro, heat three winner with a time of 1:01.70, was 24th overall.

The fastest qualifier was American Kathleen Baker with a time of 58.84 seconds.

At the Riocentro Pavillion 6, boxer Andrique Allisop met Irish Oliver David Joyce in a first round fight of the men’s light weight (60kg) and lost.

Allisop finished on the losing end on a 0-3 score after the three judges scored the bout 30-27, 29-28 and 30-27 in favour of Joyce who will now meet second seed Albert Selimov of Azerbaijan in the second round.

Despite the loss, Allisop said he is proud of his performance: “I am not disappointed. I am proud of my fight because I performed twice better than last time (Olympics 2012) and I was able to go three rounds of three minutes even with an injury. I did not give up,” said Allisop who suffered a cut over his left eye after colliding with his opponent’s elbow.

Allisop qualified for the Rio Olympics after claiming his category’s bronze medal at the International Boxing Association (Aiba) African Continental Olympic qualifying event in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

He needed to win his third place play-off fight and he convincingly beat Tunisian Shili Alaa 3-0 to join Egyptian gold medallist Abdelaal Mahmoud and Algerian silver medallist Reda Benbaziz on the plane to Rio.

This is Allisop’s second appearance at the Olympic Games after making his debut in London in 2012 where he lost his first fight against Indian Jai Bhagwan on an 8-18 verdict in the men's 60kg category bout of the round of 32 at the ExCeL South arena. He lost the first and second rounds on identical scores of 3-7, before losing the third 2-4.

G. G.