Getting Faster and Faster: Jake Johnson

Photo Courtesy: Swimming World TV

By Nicole Weaving, Swimming World Intern.

Delaware Swim Team may not have the largest presence at the CeraVe Invitational, butJake Johnson is already making a splash on the top of leaderboard. He is 16-years-old from New London Township, PA and swims on the DST Senior National Team. Johnson swims all strokes (although he rarely competes in breaststroke), but he is best at butterfly. In fact, his time in the 100 fly took him to the Olympic Trials last June.

Before traveling to Omaha, Jake Johnson raced at the CeraVe Invitational Meet last year. Being one of the youngest racers in the senior division, Johnson struggled to rank high in various events other than butterfly. However, he helped win the 400 medley relay for DST while swimming butterfly and anchored the 400 free relay that came in fourth.

Anyone in attendance last year would know Max Miranda was the talk of the meet as he won the 200 and 400 IM among other events. In the 200 fly, Miranda ran away with this race, achieving a qualifying time for trials. Johnson had to settle for second, finishing in 2:07.28, six seconds behind Miranda.

All of Miranda’s accomplishments overshadowed Johnson until the 100 fly. Jake put up an amazing time of 54.96, just .17 of a second shy of the Olympic Trials qualifying time. This was a new meet record and he beat Miranda by almost three seconds. Johnson came out faster and Miranda was never able to catch up. He kept training after the CeraVe meet until he finally achieved a fast enough time to make it to Olympic Trials. At the Eastern Zone Southern Region Sectionals, he swam 54.60 in the 100 fly, sending him to Omaha.

When speaking to him about his experience at trials, Jake remarked, “It’s actually giving me goosebumps right now thinking about it.”

At the end of June, Johnson traveled to Omaha, Nebraska to compete against the swimmers the world has come to know and love. He swam the 100 fly with a time of 54.70, only 3.5 seconds slower than Michael Phelps. However, as any native to swimming knows, hundredths of seconds can make a lifetime of difference. He came in 67^th out of 133 swimmers in the event. For a 16-year-old competing against college and professional swimmers, that quite an achievement.

He also tried to achieve a qualifying trial time in the 400 IM and the 200 fly by swimming in a time trial, but missed the mark for both times. His time in the 200 fly, 2:02.13, was actually his personal best and missed qualifying by .14 of a second.

Overall, this experience pushes him every day to get faster so he can go back and perform even better against such a high level of competition. In regards to his favorite memory from the Olympic trials, “Probably getting up behind the blocks and just, like, feeling the rush with the whole crowd of people. I remember thinking how fast my heart was pumping and I hadn’t even started the race yet.”

This year, Jake Johnson is back at the CeraVe Invitational Meet and racing faster than ever. On Day One of the meet, he won his signature event, the 100 fly with a time of 55.48, a US Open time. After the race, he was confident with his performance. “I’m feeling pretty good. It felt great getting down close to [my best] time already. Considering this is a long course meet in the middle of short course season, I am happy with that.” He also came in second in the 200 IM, swimming 2:08.46. That is almost 10 seconds faster than last year at this meet. What a difference a year can make!

In prelims on Day 2, Jake finished in first in the 100 back with a Jr. Nationals qualifying time of 58.96. He also finished fourth in the 50 free with a time of 25.14, a new personal best in this event. He will swim in the A Final for both of these events. The DST 400 Medley Relay team also competed and finished fourth after winning the event last year.

He contributes his significant change in pace to his training at Delaware. “We work hard in practice. I think that a lot of the credit has to go to my teammates and my coach. [Delaware Swim Team head coach] Pablo Marmolejo makes great practices and I wouldn’t be able to push myself as hard if I didn’t have my teammates right next to me working as well.”

With the finals of Day 2 and all of Day 3 still to come, we can only expect great things from Jake Johnson.

All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.

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Beth Sickler DeBruyn

7 years ago

Snake!

Michelle Drahus Kolessar

7 years ago

Wahoo!!! Awesome kid!!!

Crissy Verbanas

7 years ago

Congrats!