Hockin, who raced for Britain in the men’s 4x100 meters relay at the Beijing Games, qualified for London with a time of one minute 47.79 seconds in the 200 meters freestyle at a Spanish meet in Malaga on Friday.
It was another reward for persevering with his training throughout his suspension to go along with the 200 meters freestyle bronze medal he won at the Pan-American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico last October.
“I was in an Olympic final as part of a team, but now this is all about an individual event and the most important thing for me is to lower my personal best time because that means I’m working in the right direction,” the 25-year-old, born in Colombia to a British father and Paraguayan mother, told Reuters in a recent interview.
Another achievement was beating Brazilian Olympic 50 meters freestyle champion Cesar Cielo in a heat for the 100 meters at a South American meeting in Brazil early this month.
“To compete with Cielo was quite a challenge even if it was a heat, to have beaten him in an event in which he won the Olympic Games bronze medal is now on my curriculum,” the 1.96 meter tall athlete, nicknamed “Benji,” added with a laugh.
Hockin, who also reached the 50 meters butterfly semi-finals at the 2011 world championships in Shanghai, was born in Barranquilla on Colombia’s Caribbean coast and started swimming at a very early age.
“I was only a few months old when my mother would take me to the sea in Colombia and at home, while she did her household chores, she would put me in a bath with my toys so I would sleep soundly afterwards,” he said.
Later in his childhood in Paraguay, he swam in clubs in Asuncion before moving with his father as a teenager to the Spanish island of Tenerife. At 18, he went to Wales where he swam at a high performance center before competing for Britain in Beijing.
“In 2010, I decided to return to Paraguay and settle here. I took part in the South American (Odesur) Games where for the first time I won four medals (three silver and one bronze) for the country, but then came the sanction,” he said.
Hockin was suspended for a year, retroactive from May 2010, and the Paraguayan and British swimming federations were fined for not officially notifying the sport’s top authorities of his change of nationality.
He received the bad news at the short course world championships in Dubai and was not allowed to compete there.
“It was frustrating for me but it also gave me the resolve to keep training. I did so for months without being able to compete until my achievements in Shanghai and Guadalajara which made it worthwhile,” he said.
Hockin, likely to be the highest profile competitor in Paraguay’s small Olympic team, is looking to boost an interest for swimming and obtain more state support for sport in the landlocked country.
