At Last

Today, after five long years, we will have an official US Olympic swimmer, in the pool.  In fact, we will have three.  Tonight is the finals of the Men's 400 IM, the Men's 400 Free and the Women's 400 IM.  Although realistically the top two finishers in each of these three events will qualify for the Olympics, technically, only the winners will officially be Olympians tonight.  This is because the U.S. is only permitted to take 26 men and 26 women to swim in the pool in the Olympics.  There are fourteen men's events and fourteen women's events.  If two different swimmers qualify for each of those 28 spots, we have too may swimmers.  This has never happened and likely won't happen this year.  But if you are watching tonight, and why wouldn't you be watching tonight, this is why the winner will be the only swimmer who technically makes the Olympics tonight. 

We have to point out that tonight is the qualification for pool swimmers.  The qualification for open water swimmers has already happened.  Ashley Twichell, Haley Anderson and Jordan Wilimovsky have already qualified in open water.  All three will also be swimming in the pool this week.

I have been looking forward to today for more than a year.  I have really been looking forward to today for almost five years, but the last year has been brutal.  There is much to talk about, and we will do it over the next seven days.  However, as I thought about the Olympic Swimming trials, I realized that yesterday was a much more important day in the world of swimming.

Today, we get to see the fastest swimmers in the country compete for the greatest accomplishment a swimmer can achieve.  Yesterday, I got to see many children swim in a summer swim meet for the first time in two years.  It was only a team time trial, but it was special.  And it was not only me.  There were hundreds of similar meets conducted across northern Virginia, and I imagine, in many other places throughout the US.

Summer swimming is special.  I have discussed this before.  Many swimmers start their careers with a local summer swim team.  A rare few of these swimmers go on to represent the U.S. at the Olympics.  More of them, but still very few, will swim at Olympic Trials.  More will swim in college, but that is still rare.  Many will swim in high school.  Many will swim for a year round team.  Most will swim for their local summer team, and that is it.  That is what makes it special.

Summer swim is about fun and junk food and making friends and cheering and going out to lunch and community.  There is competition, sometimes fierce competition.  Sometimes there is unhealthy competition.   Mostly, though, there is fun.  There are donuts.  There are kids making friends and adults making friends.  I help run the summer team my kids swim for.  Every year I have a parents meeting and tell all the new parents that swimming is different from most youth sports.  Everyone is needed to do something, whether they are timing, officiating, writing ribbons, recording results, selling the junk food (and some good for you food), keeping the kids in line (or trying and failing) and many, many other things to make this the special sport it is.  It really does take a village.

A week and a half ago, the Olympic trials started with the beginning of Wave I.  Tonight we get the first official pool Olympians.  Yesterday, however, we got to experience the heart and soul of swimming.  As much as I have been looking forward to tonight, I realize yesterday was more important.  Several hundred swimmers get to chase their dreams at Olympic Trials.  Thousands upon thousands of kids got to experience the joys of swimming yesterday, whether they dream of being an Olympian, just want to compete, or just want to get a donut.  The pandemic took so much away from us over the past 16 months.  We are getting a lot back.  Tonight is a small step back to normalcy.   Yesterday was a giant leap in the same direction.

Predictions:

I cheated a little, because I did not do these predictions until I saw the results of this morning's preliminary heats, but here they are - 

Men's 400 IM - Chase Kalisz, Carson Foster
Men's 400 Free - Kieran Smith, Jake Mitchell
Women's 400 IM - Melanie Margalis, Hali Flickinger

What to look forward to:

1.  Do the teenagers continue their run to the Olympics in the 100 Fly?
2.  What does Katie Ledecky do in her first swim tomorrow?
3.  What does Caeleb Dressel do in his first swim (200 Free) tomorrow?
4.  This blog, actually having content on a regular basis.