Butterfly racer competes for IOC Refugee Olympic Team after representing Iran at Tokyo 2020. Matin Balsini finished 26th overall in the Men’s 200m Butterfly with his 2:00.73 time in the Tuesday’s heats at the Paris La Defense Arena.
PARIS - Matin Balsini has for several years been considered the best swimmer in Iran – he was their lone representative in the pool at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
"At age 10, I was swimming competitively," he said. "At 15, I got three golds in the Iranian National Championships and started as a professional.”
He was on track for a fine career in the 200m butterfly, representing his homeland.
Instead, he sought asylum in the UK and is competing at Paris 2024 as part of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team.
"I was the only person who represented Iran in the last Olympics in swimming,” Balsini, 23, said. “As that sort of person, if you apply for asylum, it means you will be in trouble. It makes me sad. I have my family and friends there."
Balsini’s journey to elite swimming has been a challenging one.
At 17, he made the decision to coach himself. He told his federation he had a coach from Europe, but instead he wrote his own training sets and set new personal bests.
"After six months, I’d dropped my PB from two minutes six seconds to one minute 59 seconds," he said. "I was the first Iranian to swim under two minutes. It was a time that in Beijing 2008 would get you to the Olympic final."
His decision was not well received by his former mentors.
"I was just trying to get better,” Balsini said.
The two-time Olympian competed in Tokyo 2020 without a coach and, after the 2021 World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25m) in Abu Dhabi, UAE, he decided to apply for a UK visa so he could train more effectively.
"I wasn’t coming for asylum, I just wanted to train in peace for the World Aquatics Championships in 2022," he said, which were held in Budapest, Hungary.
"I spent a lot of money and time to come to train at Guildford (UK) swimming club. For four months I was training very hard: 20 hours’ training and eight hours’ gym per week.
"But three weeks before Budapest, Iran pulled me from the entry list, and didn’t tell me why. I was the only Iranian qualified at the time.
"I was very angry. I didn’t know what to do. All the hard work had gone."
It was at that point he decided to seek asylum. The process was not easy and Balsini did not swim for much of 2023.
"I came back to swimming nine months ago, and I really need to thank the IOC for the Refugee Team, so people like me, who can’t represent their countries, still have an opportunity," he said.
"It feels so good when you know there are still some people who support you and care about your actions. And I really like the coaches here in Guildford, they are so nice and so knowledgeable."
Due to the break in training, Balsini has had to lower his targets for Paris 2024.
"If I’d swum last year, I’d have aimed for the final," he said. "But now I want to drop my PB to maybe one minute 57 seconds, which can maybe take me to the semifinal, and then I am aiming to keep going for LA 2028."