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'We push each other'| Siblings swim on first national Cape Verdean team at the 2020 Olympics

There's a lot of pressure to be the first to accomplish anything, but this family is up for the challenge. They'll be representing Cape Verde first national swim team in the 2020 Olympics.

WASHINGTON -- There’s a lot of pressure for a Howard University senior who is not only the first in her family to go to college, but also the first Cape Verdean-American to represent her family’s native country on the swim team in the 2020 Olympics.

"I feel pressure but not in a bad way,” 22-year-old Latroya Pina explained. “It’s kind of motivating like I can do this, and other people are looking up to me."

After all, the biology major and star swimmer will be making her Olympic mark not only for the country's only historically black college swim team, but for the first ever national swim team for the African island nation of Cape Verde.

Pina was recruited by Howard from her small town of Seekonk, Massachusetts. She and her younger brother and sister were hand-picked from the Cape Verdean delegation to represent them in 2020 Olympics. Together the siblings make three-fourths of the whole team.

“I’m so happy to have my siblings there with me to support me,” Pina said. “We work together as a team and we push each other.”

Pina knows this will be a historic moment.

“I’m just trying to lead the pack not only for my family but to show others they can do it as well," she said.

“To see the growth over the last couple of years and now to have this amazing opportunity - this is every swimmers’ dream,” said her coach Nick Askew.

Another big dream for Pina will be swimming in Cape Verde’s first ever Olympic Swimming pool. It’s expected to be complete next year.

And that’s when Pina plans to visit her family’s native land for the first time, however raising the country’s flag at the Olympics will be a homecoming worth celebrating.

“It’s going to feel like a great accomplishment,” Pina started to explain before welling up with tears. “I know God I'm going to cry. My father passed when I was 12, so it's a lot. It's going to be the best feeling I've ever had in my life. I can't wait to walk across and hold my flag!”

Pina’s first swim meet representing the Cape Verdean team will be at the African Nation Championship in Algeria September 10 to 16.

After her swim career, she would like to attend medical school.

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