While many of her peers spent the summer relaxing by the pool, Nadine Fanous ’23 spent her holiday training in it for up to five hours a day in preparation for COMEN, the Mediterranean Cup Swimming Competition. Representing Jordan as part of the national team, at the end of June Fanous headed to Burgas, Bulgaria to compete in the three-day competition. It was the first time since 2011 that the Jordan team qualified to participate in the challenging international competition.

Fanous, who began swimming competitively at the age of 10, was selected by the Jordan Swimming Federation to join the national team in October 2018 after meeting the international swimming federation FINA’s criteria. The year before, she had broken the Jordanian record for the 1,500m freestyle — one that had remained unbeaten for 10 years — demonstrating her endurance in long distance races.

Meanwhile at COMEN, Fanous participated in several mixed medley relay races, and improved her times in the 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle, achieving an impressive personal best of one minute 04.67 seconds in the 100m relay.

Fanous next competed in the Arab Youth Swimming Competition in Casablanca, Morocco on August 4 where she continued to improve upon her times in the 800m, 400m, 200m and 100m freestyle races and relays, in addition to taking 6^th place in the 100m freestyle competing against participants from across the Middle East and North Africa.

Well done, Nadine!