{"id":481623,"date":"2021-07-23T05:52:47","date_gmt":"2021-07-23T12:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=481623"},"modified":"2021-07-23T05:52:47","modified_gmt":"2021-07-23T12:52:47","slug":"after-acl-tear-dominican-republics-josue-dominguez-on-a-mission-in-tokyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/after-acl-tear-dominican-republics-josue-dominguez-on-a-mission-in-tokyo\/","title":{"rendered":"After ACL Tear, Dominican Republic\u2019s Josue Dominguez on a Mission in Tokyo"},"content":{"rendered":"

After ACL Tear, Dominican Republic\u2019s Josue Dominguez on a Mission in Tokyo<\/strong><\/p>\n

Josue Dominguez\u2019s<\/strong> choice of which dream to pursue wasn\u2019t much of a choice when he sat down to think about it in 2015.<\/p>\n

Dominguez had gravitated toward the pool from a young age in the Dominican Republic. He was electrified by watching Jacinto Ayala<\/strong> qualify for the Olympics in 2008, representing a country with little substantive history in the sport.<\/p>\n

But even from a young age, Dominguez\u2019s path was set by his family. He was raised in the Church of Latter Day Saints. Both parents, Jorge and Jacqueline, served missions in their youth and returned with fond stories. Dominguez knew, even before the twin threads of his life converged with the chance to represent BYU in the pool, that he would pursue a similar mission.<\/p>\n

In 2015, those paths meandered into conflict with each other. Dominguez had swum an Olympic B cut in 2014, good enough to get him to the 2016 Rio Olympics. The swim came just after his 18th birthday, when his interest in college in the U.S. and BYU in particular intensified.<\/p>\n

When Dominguez arrived in Provo, he faced a challenge that\u2019s pronounced for athletes, of how to schedule their required two-year mission around their athletic requirements and aspirations. Serving his mission at the start of his career would write off the Rio Games. Waiting would let him fulfill his Olympic dream, but it might imperil the next Olympics and limit the breaststroker\u2019s ability to reach his full potential.<\/p>\n

After leaning on support at the university and his family, the choice was clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a kid growing up in the church, I always wanted to go and serve a mission,\u201d Dominguez said recently. \u201cBoth of my parents served missions, and sometimes when we were doing chores or at home at night when we gathered together, they would tell stories about their mission. My feelings were just, amazed about all the nice experiences they had, and since I was a kid, I wanted to have my own experiences as a missionary and help other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already winding, Dominguez\u2019s journey took an unplanned detour when he tore his ACL during the mission in Puebla, Mexico. It took more than two years to get back to his best, after he finished the last year of his mission with a surgically repaired knee.<\/p>\n

But now, nearly seven years after he first attained a B cut for the Games, Dominguez is ready to have his Olympic moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got old enough to understand everything, I was like, that\u2019s what it means to the country when someone qualifies for the Olympics,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted that. I wanted to qualify for the Olympics. I wanted to be part of the national team. And I\u2019ve been working hard this, to be in the Olympics, I can say, for more than 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n