By: Charles Hartley
Listen to me right now, guys: Whether it's Caitlin Clark or the Joker or Wake Forest football or anywhere in America or on six other continents, nothing is more important than what's being unleashed today at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
It all starts with the most emotional, most exciting and most pressure-filled event in all of sports: the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials.
I was excited when I got married and had children, but I'd never been more emotional than I am now, watching America's best swimmers condense their entire lives into one or a few events, making a few desperate dives into the pool after the starting gun to see if sacrificing their childhoods in pursuit of their Olympic dreams would be feasible.
The chances of that happening are slim, and the swimmers will learn this harsh reality when it's time to step up to the mound and swim. Only the swimmers who place first and second in each event will make it to the Olympics. The rest of the swimmers — the dozens who will compete in Indy, the hundreds who didn't qualify but have been training their whole lives — will wonder if getting up at 5 a.m. to practice swimming and staring at the line was worth missing out on the countless opportunities to party and do other things in high school.
Just two.
The rest go home.
Someone recently said that the toughest team is the U.S. Women's Olympic Basketball Team, and I ask, “How is that possible?” There are 12 people on that team. Two is less than 12. And those basketball players have never held their heads underwater for two-a-day practices since they were 12 like those swimmers.
A single-minded life like making the U.S. Olympic team would be virtually impossible, so I naturally admire these swimmers more than any other athlete. Plus, I swam as a kid, and I still remember the practices and races being more painful than any other sport.
swimming.
Nothing gets me more excited than this.
Of course, there is one story that touches my heart the most: Remember Caleb Dressel, who won five gold medals at the 2021 Olympics but, like so many swimmers and all of us, endured and suffered through the pandemic?
This grueling journey of uncertainty has taken a toll on Dressel, and he's willing to admit it. Emotionally exhausted and burdened, he decided enough was enough a few years ago and took eight months off swimming, but doing something like that is a big risk if he wants to swim in the next Olympics, because great American swimmers keep racing and don't take eight months off.
Dressel has a chance to re-qualify in the 100m freestyle and butterfly, and potentially make the men's freestyle relay team. We'll see if the time off costs him the Olympic experience. It's a loss, because he's charismatic, likeable, honest, vulnerable, and therefore cool. But what I want most is for him to feel good about himself and his preparation, and to know that by achieving his dream in 2021, he's given us hope that we can achieve our dreams, too.
Interestingly, one of my son's main competitors in the 100m freestyle was Jack Alexie, who coached my daughter on her local swim team when she was 7 years old. She came home from practice and said to me, “Dad, I have an incredibly fast kid on my team.” I was surprised because I had watched her and countless other fast swimmers in New Jersey. Jack also attended the same Delbarton High School as my son.
In that sense, swimming is a small world.
Another interesting story, of course, is whether Katie Ledecky will win another gold medal in a row and further solidify her status as the greatest female swimmer of all time. This seems less certain than the past two Olympic Games, because there is a Canadian woman, Summer McIntosh, who has the coolest name of a swimmer since America's Summer Sanders. Summer McIntosh might beat Katie in the 400m freestyle if Katie makes the U.S. team.
The third storyline is whether a guy nobody knew about until the last Olympics can qualify for the U.S. 1,500-meter freestyle endurance torture chamber and continue to astound people with his greatness.
I'm talking about Bobby Finke, who stunned swimming experts at the last Olympics by winning gold medals in the 1500 and 800 freestyle. He was the long-distance runner, the athlete people doubted, the American underdog, the one whose fairy tale became nonfiction.
Rocky Balboa, in a way. He sees it through to the end.
What an incredible thing! You see the wealth of individuals pursuing what seemed to be an impossible dream. You look at this wonder and wonder how and why they did it, why they skipped so many everyday things because swimming was so all-consuming.
Two per race. That's it. The rest go home and ask themselves if they want to keep swimming nonstop for another four years or if they just don't have the energy to continue.
About Charles Hartley
Charles Hartley is a freelance writer based in Bernardsville, New Jersey. He has a Master's in Journalism and a Master's in Business Administration.
