Our golden champion

Ryk Neethling is aiming for Olympic gold next month, and that is why he turned down a request to be the bachelor in US TV's popular reality TV show The Bachelor. Our sexiest swimmer, who is training in Arizona, was approached by the casting agency last week. Ryk has his eyes set on gold in Beijing, where he will be competing in the 100m freestyle and 4x100m relay. This is his fourth Olympic Games. He arrives in South Korea on Wednesday to join the national squad for a pre-games training camp. The busy man is also busy with his autobiography, Chasing the Dream, which should be on book shelves in October. Ryk almost drowned at the age of five while swimming at a friend’s house. This led his mother, San-Marie, to take him to swimming lessons. The former Grey College student left Bloemfontein to enrol at the University of Arizona on a sports scholarship. Ryk dated American swimmer Amanda Beard, once described as the world’s sexiest sportswoman. His autobiography will reveal why he turned down a multimillion-dollar offer to swim for Qatar and why he refuses to leave South Africa, despite being a repeat victim of crime.