EXCLUSIVE!! Ben Michaelson’s Pan Am Diary: GOLD!!

SwimInfo congratulates Ben on his gold medal swim tonight.

By Ben Michaelson

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, August 12. GOLD!!

The team just got back from Day 2 finals. I put together a pretty good swim, and came away with the gold! I was pretty nervous this morning and was a
little tense during my swim. I think I tried too hard instead of just letting the swim happen.

I got a good nap this afternoon and re-shaved to get ready for finals. Everything went well tonight except that I got stuck on the blocks at the start–my reaction time was about the worst I've ever had! I was able to keep my composure and fight back from dead last at the start to fourth at the turn. I had a good underwater kick off the wall and brought it home strong enough to get to the wall first.

Even though I didn't do a best time, I think a raced well under the conditions. Given my HUGE mistake on the start, I think I did OK for my first international trip.

I REALLY wanted to swim a faster time, but I know that the swim is there; I just have to put it together another day and do it.

At the end of the day, though, it was really awesome to stand up on the podium with a gold medal around my neck and hear our national anthem.

Team USA has been totally dominant so far. We won every event tonight and all but one last night. We're looking forward to 4 more great days of competition, and really making our mark as the #1 swimming nation in the Americas.

I guess what I learned today is that mistakes happen, but keeping it together and recovering from them is the most important part. Perfection may be unattainable, but the pursuit of that one perfect race is what makes us great. I'll probably swim the medley relay on the last night, so I have a couple of days to figure out how to swim a little more perfect!

Later.

Ben

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