On Third Try, Melissa Rodriguez Makes Olympic Dream Come True

Photo Courtesy: Melissa Rodriguez

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On Third Try, Melissa Rodriguez Makes Olympic Dream Come True

When news of the Olympic postponement broke in the spring of 2020, Melissa Rodriguez started on a process she already knew too well.

She’d navigated that decision – another year or no? – plenty of times. It happened in the summer of 2016, when the Mexican breaststroker felt she’d done enough to get to the Rio Games only to see the goalposts moved at the last moment. She’d pondered if Tokyo was worth pursuing so many times in the intervening four years, with no college swimming to anchor her. Once again, in the face of COVID-19, she had to assess if the effort was still worth it.

“I definitely had my ups and downs,” Rodriguez said last week. “But I’m happy I went for it and now I’m on the other side.”

Melissa Rodriguez; Photo Courtesy: Lalo Arballo

The third time is the charm for Rodriguez. She was fractions of a second away from making the Olympics in 2012 – in fact, she figured that if judged by the 2008 protocol, she would’ve have been there. The same held true in 2016, with the painful dagger twist that an invitation to the Olympics was extended by FINA but rejected by the Mexican Swimming Federation.

Now, in her third Olympic cycle, 10 years after her first major international meet and at the age of 26, she’s finally ready to be a first-time Olympian.

“It was a rollercoaster,” Rodriguez said. “Last week, my coach and I were expecting the classification, but once we had the confirmation, it was a whole different show. It took me about two nights to actually fall asleep and believe it.”

“Rollercoaster” puts it lightly. Rodriguez has been one of Mexico’s top swimmers for a very long time, so long that it’s shocking an Olympic berth was part of it. She holds all three long-course national records in breaststroke. She was 16 when she burst onto the scene in 2011 at the Pan Am Games, which she parlayed into a career at Penn State, where she left with a program record in the 200 breast.

But that achievement didn’t prevent Olympic heartbreak. The Chihuahua native attained an Olympic B cut ahead of the 2012 Olympics and was led to believe that if she was in the world rankings, she’d included in the Mexican team. But she missed that spot by .07 and was left home.

In 2016, she operated under the same assumption. But the Mexican Swimming Federation opted to take only those who attained A cuts to Rio. That made for a three-person delegation. Rodriguez, with a high B cut, was again on the outside looking in.

That exclusion required a long soul-searching for Rodriguez, who by then had obtained degrees in agricultural science and business at Penn State. It took her more than six months to decide if she wanted to go through the trouble of another four years. But what won out was her deep feeling that she was capable of being an Olympian, all external factors aside.

“I was good enough to make it,” she said. “Maybe the circumstances and other things that I couldn’t control weren’t helping me, but I had the talent and I had the determination and everything it takes to be an Olympian, and (my family and friends) were so helpful for me to stick to it. They were like, suck it up and keep going and eventually it will happen.”

This cycle has brought more consternation. In addition to all the challenge of COVID-19, a group of swimmers, led by Rodriguez’s coach Nicholas Torres, has complained that the FMN failed to support athletes financially. Their appeals to the national sports governing body, CONADE, have fallen on deaf ears.

The petitions were lodged with an eye toward the possibility of more disappointment. Rodriguez had put herself, theoretically, in good position for the Games. She was .02 off the Olympic A standard in the 200 breaststroke at 2:25.54 and .25 off the mark in the 100 breast (1:07.32). A little part of her was prepping for disappointment.

But she wasn’t alone in that limbo. Until fellow Penn Stater Gabe Castano attained an A cut in the men’s 50 free, Mexico had several swimmers hovering around the cut line with an automatic qualifier. Jorge Iga’s best time in the men’s 100 free is .12 off the A cut, yet he won’t be in Tokyo. Jose Angel Martinez, who is .11 off the A cut in the 200 IM, will take part. Ricardo Vargas, who swam the 1,500 in Rio, isn’t part of the team, nor is Ayumi Macias, who was 3.32 seconds off the cut in the women’s 1,500 free. (Even the reveal that Rodriguez was on the team, she said, was dimmed by waiting to see if Martinez made it, too.)

It’s not a comfortable – or common – position to have to battle the ambivalence of a federation while also depending on them for selection and funding. Melissa Rodriguez has managed to survive that conflict. And with Tokyo in her sights, she’s out to do her best in the pool, for herself and the people who have supported her.

“I want to put Mexico on the map,” she said. “I know swimming hasn’t been the strongest sport for Mexico, but I want definitely to show that Mexican swimmers have the talent and the determination to be on top of the world.”

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