Black People Don’t Swim? Cullen Jones Becomes America’s Fastest Swimmer

Cullen Jones is headed to this year’s Olympic games. The former North Carolina State star qualified for two individual events over the weekend and earned the title of America’s fastest swimmer by besting rival Anthony Ervin by 1/100th of a second.

Jones will be competing in the men’s 50m and 100m freestyle races as well as the 4×100 relay race.

The swimmer, who has worked extensively to encourage African-American kids to take up swimming through the “Make A Splash” initiative, says his recent victory was the realization of a dream.

“I’ve been dreaming of this forever, of qualifying for two individual events in the Olympics,” he told reporters.

“The plan now,” Jones said, “is not to let the U.S. down.”

I’m sure he’ll do just fine.

Jones will be joined by two other black swimmers at this year’s Olympic games, Anthony Ervin and Lia Neal, giving the U.S. team some much-needed diversity and hopefully encouraging more people of color to hit the pool.