He can hoop, but Olympic champ must wait to join IU swim tradition
BLOOMINGTON – The most accomplished athlete at Indiana University plays basketball. He is 6-5, wears size-12 ½ shoes, features long fingers for ballhandling, dunks easily, comes from a hoops family.
Except he will not be wearing the candy stripes. Ahmed Hafnaoui (pronounced haff-NOW-ee) is waiting to become academically eligible for the Hoosiers in swimming. He is housed in Willkie Hall, taking classes and training for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
He has one gold medal, won at age 18 last year. It was such a shocking outcome — Hafnaoui was the last qualifier in the 400-meter freestyle final — that FINA, the world governing body for swimming, labeled it the No. 1 moment of the Tokyo Olympics.
As if that were not surreal, the Hoosiers began recruiting the Tunisian months before then and secured a Muslim prospect because of a Jewish swimmer. Such is the universality of sport.
“We looked like geniuses,” Indiana coach Ray Looze said.
Hafnaoui will not race in Indianapolis’ World Cup event, which runs Thursday through Saturday at the Natatorium at IUPUI. Academics override all else, so he remains on campus to catch up on studies.
He acknowledged balancing school with training — along with adjusting to a new place, language, food and climate — has been difficult.
“We’re still kind of working our way through that,” Looze said.
Not that Hafnaoui didn’t work to get here.
He began swimming at age 6, joined the national program at 12, won four medals in the African Championships at 15. His father, Mohammed, played basketball for the national team of Tunisia, a North African country of 12.1 million bordering the Mediterranean Sea.
Hafnaoui said there are three 50-meter pools in the entire country. But he felt more at home there than on the court.
When he was 14 or 15, he said, he broke a Tunisian record held by Ous Mellouli, a six-time Olympian who was an NCAA champion at USC and gold medalist in 2008 and 2012.
“I was thinking I could be one of the best in the world,” Hafnaoui said.
He didn’t think it would be as soon as 2021. No one did.
Because of the pandemic, the Hoosiers were not recruiting off campus in May 2021, but assistant coach Luke Ryan was allowed to travel with Israeli swimmer Tomer Frankel of IU. Ryan saw Hafnaoui in a meet in Monaco and delivered this scouting report:
“This guy is phenomenal.”
Hafnaoui made a verbal commit to the Hoosiers. He liked the coaches and the tradition.
At Tokyo, Looze was a Team USA assistant coach and introduced himself to Hafnaoui the night before the 400 freestyle. The next morning, the 16th-seeded swimmer was the last of eight to make the cut, just behind Carmel swimmer Jake Mitchell.
Looze sat with Gregg Troy, coach of superstar Caeleb Dressel, during the 400 freestyle. Hafnaoui, out of lane 8, was surprisingly second through 200 meters and then overtook Australia’s Jack McLaughlin.
Hafnaoui couldn’t believe he had won.
“It was just a dream,” he said, “and it came true.”
The time, 3:43.36, was slowest to win gold since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics . . . but the Tunisian was now an Olympic champion. And IU now had a problem.
“Everybody and their brother is going to be all over that guy,” Troy told Looze.
Hafnaoui said the NCAA’s top two powers, Texas and California, both approached him. He stuck with Indiana. Seeing names of Hoosier greats on the walls of the Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatics Center only affirmed his decision.
“Of course, I know Mark Spitz. Who doesn’t know that?” he said. “I’m pretty excited to swim here. They have like a legacy of champions here. I want to be one of the NCAA champs.”
Hafnaoui was 10th in the 800 freestyle at Tokyo, making skeptics wonder if it was all an aberration. It was not.
In the short course World Championships, held at Abu Dhabi in December 2021, he won a silver medal in the 1,500 freestyle. It took a world record, by Germany’s Florian Wellbrock, to beat him.
Hafnaoui took an elongated break, was out of the water from April to August, and missed May’s long course World Championships. Since arriving Aug. 24 in Bloomington, he has missed weeks of training because of illnesses.
The pandemic and the Olympic year interrupted studies, and Hafnaoui lacked the necessary exam scores for immediate eligibility.
Only two men — Australians Murray Rose (1956-60) and Ian Thorpe (2000-04) — have won repeat golds in the 400 freestyle. Hafnaoui has an American pathway to Paris, where he would be just 21.
“When he trains, you can see he is an Olympic champion,” Looze said. “If we can just get him settled, he’ll be just fine.”
Helping him get settled is volunteer assistant coach Youssef Elkamash, a former IU swimmer from Egypt. Elkamash understands how hard the transition is from North Africa or the Middle East. Resources of an elite college program can only help, Elkamash said.
Hafnaoui thought it was cold when Bloomington temperatures dropped to the 50s. Still, he said his biggest challenge is not climate but communication. He has been speaking English for just two years.
He has developed a liking for Mexican food, and he could always shoot hoops for fun. Other swimmers rave about his athleticism.
“They are just excited to have me with them. I’m just vibing with them,” he said.
“It’s good for me to be here.”
Contact IndyStar reporter David Woods at david.woods@indystar.com or dwoods1411@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.
World Cup swimming
What: FINA World Cup, last of three legs.
When: Thursday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m. prelims and 6 p.m. finals.
Where: Natatorium at IUPUI.
Tickets: tickets.usaswimming.org.
Who:
International: Women, Louise Hansson, Sweden; Siobahn Haughey, Hong Kong; Kyle Massie and Summer McIntosh, Canada. Men, Thomas Ceccon, Italy; Kyle Chalmers, Australia; Chad le Clos and Matthew Sates, South Africa; Duncan Scott, Great Britain.
USA: Women, Hali Flickinger, Katie Grimes, Katie Ledecky, Leah Smith. Men, Michael Andrew, Hunter Armstrong, Shaine Casas, Nic Fink, Bobby Finke, Kieran Smith, Bobby Finke, Ryan Murphy.
Indiana: Women, Berit Berglund, Lily Christianson, Lilly King, Annie Lazor, JoJo Ramey, Alex Shackell. Men, Brendan Burns, Drew Kibler, Cody Miller, Will Modglin, Aaron Shackell.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Olympic gold medalist Ahmed Hafnaoui must wait to swim for Indiana
