Nicholas Folker
Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Full name | Nicholas Folker | |||||||||||||||||||||
National team | ![]() |
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Born | Pietermaritzburg, South Africa |
26 October 1976 |||||||||||||||||||||
Height | 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in) | |||||||||||||||||||||
Weight | 85 kg (187 lb) | |||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Swimming | |||||||||||||||||||||
Strokes | Freestyle | |||||||||||||||||||||
Club | Pietermaritzburg Seals | |||||||||||||||||||||
College team | University of Hawaii (U.S.) | |||||||||||||||||||||
Coach | Sam Freas (U.S.) | |||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Nicholas Folker (born October 26, 1976) is a South African former swimmer, who specialized in sprint freestyle events.[1] He captured two medals at the 1999 All-Africa Games, and later represented South Africa at the 2000 Summer Olympics. While residing in the United States, Folker achieved school records in a sprint freestyle double and also trained for the University of Hawaii's swimming and diving team, also known as the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, under the tutelage of head coach Sam Freas.[2][3]
Folker made his own swimming history at the 1999 Summer Universiade in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, where he earned a bronze medal in the 100 m freestyle at 50.77, finishing behind Russia's Denis Pimankov and Italy's Mauro Gallo.[4][5] When his nation South Africa hosted the All-Africa Games in Johannesburg on that year, Folker added two more medals to his career hardware in front of a massive home crowd: a silver in the 50 m freestyle (22.83) and another bronze in the 100 m freestyle (50.61).[6]
At the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Folker competed in two swimming events with only six days in between.[7][8] First, he teamed up with Roland Mark Schoeman, Brendon Dedekind, and deaf-mute Terence Parkin in the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay. Swimming the third leg in heat two, Folker overhauled a 50-second barrier and recorded a split of 49.57, but the South Africans missed the top 8 final by 1.09 seconds, finishing in fifth place and eleventh overall with an African standard of 3:21.28.[9][10] Because of his powerful effort in the freestyle relay, Folker was selected to join with Simon Thirsk, Brett Petersen, and Theo Verster in the 4 × 100 m medley relay six days later. During the prelims race, he swam a freestyle leg in the same heat with a scintillating anchor of 49.53 to deliver a fourth-place finish and thirteenth overall for the South Africans in 3:42.44.[11]
The following year, at the 2001 Goodwill Games in Brisbane, Australia, Folker, along with his teammate Schoeman and Latin American sprinters José Meolans (Argentina) and Fernando Scherer (Brazil), captured a silver medal for the all-stars team in the freestyle relay (3:18.78).[12]
Since his sporting career ended in 2004, Folker currently works on his sixth season as a strength and conditioning coach for the California Golden Bears men's swimming and diving team at the University of California, Berkeley.[13][14]
References
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External links
- Coach Bio – California Golden Bears
- Nicholas Folker on TwitterLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Pages using Infobox sportsperson with module2 parameter
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- Pages using infobox swimmer with national team parameter
- Pages using infobox swimmer with show-medals enabled
- 1976 births
- Living people
- South African swimmers
- Olympic swimmers of South Africa
- Swimmers at the 2000 Summer Olympics
- Male freestyle swimmers
- People from Pietermaritzburg
- Hawaii Rainbow Warriors swimmers
- University of Hawaii alumni
- College swimming coaches in the United States