First-Timers Earn Their Spots, Steal the Show at USA Swimming Nationals

Men's 200 fly national champion Justin Wright -- Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

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By David Rieder.

Tim Hinchey took over as USA Swimming CEO in July 2017, less than a year after the organization had watched its biggest star and its face, Michael Phelps, retire for the second time. Hinchey’s friends asked him, in a sport lacking for transcendent stars, how do you compensate for that loss?

“I go back to my NBA experience—people said that when Michael (Jordan) left, and all the sudden a guy named LeBron (James) came around. After LeBron, there’s Stephen Curry,” Hinchey said. “Everyone should be really excited because it’s not just about one swimmer—it’s about a team of stars.”

But on this night, the first at an all-important Nationals, the stars were quiet. Sure, Katie Ledecky got those in attendance excited when she went out under world record-pace over the first third of her 800 free, but she settled down and ended up with merely the 13th-fastest performance in history at 8:11.98. She now owns the top 19 swims ever in the event.

Simone Manuel swam a fine 100 free, her 52.54 good for third in the world behind the sisters Bronte and Cate Campbell. Nathan Adrian shrugged off his 48.25 in the men’s 100 free, explaining that he was perfectly happy to have finished second, while Caeleb Dressel, he of seven World Championship gold medals and an American record of 47.17, slumped badly, finishing sixth in 48.50—undoubtedly, the stunner of the night. Blake Pieroni of the Indiana Hoosiers won the event in 48.0.

So, no, this one did not belong to the stars. The hyped-up final of the men’s 100 free, seen as the consensus favorite for race of the night, left everyone wondering what exactly had just happened.

But far less complicated were the emotions from a half-hour earlier, in the first two finals of the meet: The raw elation of a first-timer, an athlete who has gotten over the hump and made the team, in this case for next month’s Pan Pacific Championships—three times over.

For her first two years at Stanford, Katie Drabot swam in the shadows of Ledecky, Manuel and NCAA swimmer of the year Ella Eastin. Until, that is, she got her own breakthrough moment in an event she never would have expected to find one.

Katie Drabot — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Drabot began swimming the 200 fly this collegiate season because she preferred it as an alternative to the 1650 free. She enjoyed training butterfly, which she found less stressful than her standard freestyle sets.

“It was still a very fresh event, so there was no real pressure in training,” Drabot said. “As for freestyle, I feel like I have the times in my head for what I needed to do.”

Drabot didn’t swim the 200 fly long course for several years. She thinks that before this spring, her lifetime best was around 2:25, but she’s not sure. But then she swam a 2:08.38 in the event at the TYR Pro Swim Series in Indianapolis, and she knew what was possible. Ledecky did, too.

“I pretty much knew she was going to get that done,” Ledecky said with a grin. “I had so much confidence in her and the training she’s put in this past year.”

Drabot dropped her time down to 2:07.30 in prelims to qualify second for the final, and at night, she put together a 2:07.18 to touch second—all but certainly securing her spot at the Pan Pacific Championships.

She walked off the pool deck where her Stanford teammates found her and wrapped her in a massive group hug. It was the break she had targeted and wanted for years, but still, “it’s very surreal.”

===

A few moments later, in the men’s equivalent event, two men who hardly anyone predicted to be the top two American 200 butterflyers coming out of Nationals put together the best swims of their lives and, in their minds, validated their swimming careers.

Justin Wright openly questioned whether he should still be swimming after completing his college career at the University of Arizona with a disappointing fifth-place finish in the 200-yard fly at the NCAA championships.

“I kind of had a few doubts going into the summer,” Wright said. “Most of my friends were retiring at that point.”

Instead, Wright put together the most balanced race in the men’s 200 fly A-final and won his first national title. He was seventh after 50 meters, seventh after 100 and fifth after 150. But he split 29.61 on the way home, a half-second faster than anyone else in the field, to get past pre-race favorite Jack Conger and the entire field to secure his spot at Pan Pacs.

In his post-race television interview, Wright shouted out his coaches—Arizona head coach Augie Busch, his personal coach Beth Botsford and the entire first-year Wildcats coaching staff—as the key reason behind his breakthrough. And he shared one particular advice he got from them.

“‘If you’ve got a secret sauce, you’ve got to fully develop it, and in that part of the race, you’ve got to make sure that no one can beat you in it,’” Wright recalled. “I’ve just been working on a lot of bulky fly sets—I mean really bulky fly sets—and making sure I can get home fast.”

On the last 50, Wright admitted, “I was peaking a lot at Jack, just trying to swing my arms as fast as I can.” It worked.

Wright hit the wall and smashed the water—but his celebration paled in comparison to the man in lane two, Zach Harting, and that of his Louisville team, parked in front of the spectator bleachers on the far side of the pool.

After…. #TheDarkKnightRises pic.twitter.com/y8Mo9l9cJi

— UofL Swim&Dive (@UofLswim_dive) July 26, 2018

Louisville head coach Arthur Albiero jumped and hugged anyone in reach. So did his assistants and his swimmers. As the other seven swimmers made their way off the deck, Harting jogged over to them and hugged each one. Like Wright and like Drabot, he had made it.

“I stepped up on the blocks, and my whole hands were tingling and numb,” Harting said. “I’ve never had that before. I had a feeling it was going to be a good race if I put everything together, which is what I’ve been training to do. That’s probably the best swim I’ve ever had.”

Harting is one of more than a dozen swimmers who likely secured his spot on the Pan Pacs team on the first night, but of the almost 900 swimmers in the meet, he’s definitely the only one carrying around and drinking water out of a plastic red gas can.

Zach Harting celebrating with his Louisville coaches — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

He picked up the idea for drinking from a gas can at a concert. He figured, no normal people drink from one, but in order to accomplish what he wanted in the sport, he needed to be a little crazy.

“If I wanted to be with these people I’m trying to compete with, Olympians and World Champions, I figured my training would have to be insane,” he said. “The gas can was ultimately for them, to keep me reminded and focused on what I was trying to do at practice.”

Harting has one more year of college swimming to go, but he told himself that if he didn’t post massive improvements this summer, “your career is going to have to be over sooner than you’d like.” Now, validation.

Harting may never be a star, one of the faces posted on the doors at the CenturyLink Center when Olympic Trials return to Omaha, Neb., in 2020. Same with Wright, and ditto with Drabot. But on this quiet night for the stars, all three got all they ever wanted out of a U.S. Nationals: their spot.

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John Fellows

5 years ago

Zach Harting and others qualify for Pan Pacific Champs.

Rebecca Sewall Hindman

5 years ago

Bear Down!