Tunisian swimmer wins Olympic bronze

Tunisian swimmer and Olympic champion Oussame Mellouli won bronze in the 1,500m freestyle heat on Saturday, reported Tunisia Live online.

It was the same event that Mellouli’s won gold in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

The swimmer competed against athletes like Yang Sun of China who went on to win gold and broke his own world record for the competition. Mellouli and Sun were in a tight race against each other, with the Tunisian just a few seconds behind the Chinese swimmer. The race gripped Mellouli fans into posting words of encouragement for the swimmer on Sun’s Facebook page.

Mellouli was in fifth position by the end of the first lap, but he pushed to fourth on the second lap, while Sun was ahead of his competitors. Mellouli continued pushing forward until he cemented third place by the end of the first kilometer, clocking in at 14:40.31. Canadian Ryan Cochrane earned silver at 14:39:63, and Sun nabbed gold along with a new world record at 14:31.02.