Nine days have passed since the opening of the Paris Olympics and Team PNG’s fourth athlete Georgia – Leigh Vele is set to compete in the sport of swimming. Vele will participate in the Women’s 50m Freestyle at the Paris La Defense arena, 7:09pm PNG time. She has received much love and support from Papua New Guineans on social media wishing her the best and good luck. The young swimmer alongside counterpart Josh Tarere entered the games via universality placing, a system aimed to improve the gender parity and diversity of participating nations in all Olympic sports, accessible to national Olympic committees that typically have small delegations. Her previous competitions include the Women’s 100m freestyle at the World Aquatics championships held in Gwangju, South Korea (2019), and the 50m breaststroke at the Pacific Games (2023) which she secured a bronze medal. Vele will be competing against Kaiya Brown (Samoa), Ionnah Eliane Douilet (Benin), Jovana Kuljaca (Montenegro), Kennice Aphenie Greene (St. Vincent and the Grenadines), Khema Elizabeth (Seychelles), Christina Rach (Eritrea) and Sophia Latiff (Tanzania).