WMC-TV: News, Weather, Traffic, Radar, and Sports for Memphis, TN; WMCTV.com | Memphian Gil Stovall set to make another run at Olympic gold

Memphian Gil Stovall set to make another run at Olympic gold

By Andrew Douglas - bio | email | Twitter | Facebook

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC-TV) - An Olympic swimmer from Memphis is ready to dive-in headfirst into a run at the 2012 games in London.

Gil Stovall has competed on the biggest state in the world.@@

"I've been swimming since I was 5 years old and been wanting to go to the Olympics since I was 5 yrs old," Stovall said in a recent interview.

In 2008, he achieved his childhood dream. After earning state titles at Ridgeway High School and setting team and a collegiate records at the University of Georgia, Stovall made it to the swimming cube in Beijing.

"To qualify for the Olympics I had to swim the second fastest time in the world behind Michael Phelps, because the guy who was behind me got third fastest time in the world," he said.

In Beijing, many expected Stovall to place in his event, the 200 meter butterfly. But something awful happened.

"They warned us don't ever drink water from the tap," he said.

But during a night out with his family, Stovall inadvertently let his guard down.

"I just drank some water out of glass," he said. "I got sick the morning of semi-finals."

Stovall was suffering from dysentery by the time his event started. The top eight finishers went to the medal round, but Stovall missed the cut by 1/100th's of a point.

"It still irks me because I was going into the Olympics favored to medal, and things just didn't go as planned," he said.

After the Olympics, Stovall got out of the water and got into coaching. But a few months ago, some of his supporters urged him to try for Olympic gold again.

"I'm gonna need the support of the whole city behind me doing this again, and I'm really excited about it," he said. "It's going to be a lot of fun."

Gil Stovall's younger brother, Brooks, swam with him while they were in high school, and Gil says Brooks is just as good as him, if not better.

Brooks Stovall is in the Army, currently stationed in the Middle East.

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