page_title: Virgin Islands at the 2008 Summer Olympics
section_title: Swimming
hierarchical_section_title: Virgin Islands at the 2008 Summer Olympics / Swimming
caption_attribution_description: English: The watercube, Beijing, during de 100 meter's victory ceremony, august 14th 2008 Français&#160;: Le Cube d'eau à pékin, durant la cérémonie de remise des médailles du 100m hommes le 14 août 2008
context_page_description: The United States Virgin Islands competed in the 2008 Summer Olympics, which were held in Beijing, the People's Republic of China from August 8 to August 24, 2008. The appearance of its 23-person delegation marked its fifteenth appearance at the Olympic games, and its tenth appearance at the Summer Olympic games. In total, seven athletes participated on behalf of the Virgin Islands in Beijing. Of those, John Jackson and Tabarie Henry progressed to a post-preliminary event, and Henry reached semifinals in his own. There were no Virgin Islander medalists at the Beijing Olympics.
context_section_description: Former University of Georgia student Josh Laban was the only swimmer to participate on behalf of the Virgin Islands at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He has known U.S. Virgin Islander swimmers Kieran Locke and Kevin Hensley since childhood, and competed alongside them during qualifying competitions. His participation marked his second appearance at the Olympics, with his first being at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. In Beijing, Laban was placed in the seventh heat of the August 14 preliminaries round against swimmers that included Chile's Oliver Elliot and Romania's Norbert Trandafir. With a time of 23.28 seconds, Laban ranked seventh in the heat of eight athletes, defeating Kyrgyzstan's Vitaly Vasilev by 0.74 seconds and falling behind sixth-place swimmer Martyn Forde of Barbados by 0.20  seconds. Laban was 0.53 seconds slower than Elliot, who led the heat. Overall, Laban ranked 53rd out of 97 athletes competing in the event. He did not progress to the semifinal rounds held later that day.
  Men
caption: The inside of the "Water Cube", where the year's Olympic swimming events took place.
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