Kimiko Shihara Raheem (born 28 January 1999) is a Sri Lankan national swimmer who has represented her country at several international competitions. She represented her country at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She won multiple gold medals at the 2016 South Asian Games in the backstroke and freestyle events.[1] She won the highest number of medals by a Sri Lankan woman at the 2016 South Asian Games in India, and was named Best Female Athlete of the Games by the Bangladesh Sports Press Association.[2] She is the younger sister of Mayumi Raheem and Machiko Raheem both of whom hold national records themselves. She was a semi-finalist at the 100m backstroke event at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.[3] She holds numerous Sri Lankan national records and South Asian records in her name.

Kimiko Raheem
Personal information
Full nameKimiko Raheem
NicknameKimi
National team Sri Lanka
Born (1999-01-28) 28 January 1999 (age 25)
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Height167 cm (5 ft 6 in)
Weight55 kg (121 lb)
Sport
SportSwimming
StrokesFreestyle, Backstroke
Medal record
Women's swimming
Representing  Sri Lanka
South Asian Games
Gold medal – first place 2016 Guwahati 50 m breaststroke
Gold medal – first place 2016 Guwahati 100 m backstroke
Gold medal – first place 2016 Guwahati 200 m backstroke
Gold medal – first place 2016 Guwahati 50 m freestyle
Gold medal – first place 2016 Guwahati 100 m freestyle
Silver medal – second place 2016 Guwahati 4×100 m freestyle

Raheem currently lives in Phuket, Thailand where she trained at the Thanyapura Aquatic Training Centre from mid-2015 leading up to the Olympic Games. This was under a FINA scholarship awarded to multiple swimmers from several countries. Cherantha de Silva was the other Sri Lankan swimmer who was given a scholarship by FINA. She went to the British International School in Phuket, but currently is finishing her high school in the United World College of Thailand. She has previously lived in Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Singapore and Qatar.

In February 2018, Raheem was named to Sri Lanka's 2018 Commonwealth Games team.[4][5]

References edit

  1. ^ "Sri Lanka's Kimiko Raheem sets new South Asian Games record - Newsfirst". Sri Lanka News - Newsfirst - News1st - newsfirst.lk - Breaking. Archived from the original on 15 January 2018. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  2. ^ Premalal, Susil (24 July 2016). "Abeysinghe and Raheem ready to make waves". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 6 September 2022.
  3. ^ "Kimiko the third star rising from Rahim". Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  4. ^ "Swimming: Two women and four men to represent Sri Lanka at CWG 2018". The Sunday Times. Colombo, Sri Lanka. 19 February 2018. Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  5. ^ Ranasinghe, Dinushki (1 March 2018). "Know your swimmers for Commonwealth Games 2018". www.thepapare.com. Dialog Axiata. Retrieved 18 March 2018.

External links edit