Swimmer books hard-fought ticket to Rio
Measures, as always, were faithfully taken.
Endless lengths. Two-a-days. Weight training. Session after session. Name it and it had been taken care of.
Bracing for the biggest swim meet of her life — the Olympic trials in April — Rachel Nicol made sure she was finely tuned. One problem. Two, actually. She was so nervous, so wound up, she could not sleep. Or eat. Debilitating stuff for an elite athlete, of course. Rest and fuel are paramount to performance.
But stakes — a ticket to Rio de Janeiro — were high. So, depleted, Nicol made do. After a fortnight’s stretch of fitful shuteye, she dragged herself out of the rack the morning of the decisive day. She choked down what she could (a dry handful of Raisin Bran) and headed to the pool to psych up (listening, as usual, to The Rolling Stones on her headphones).
“Close to the top of the list of the most stressful experiences I’ve gone through,” says Nicol, a native of Lethbridge. “In terms of stress levels, one of the highest. I’ve never had too much of a problem eating — that was something new.”
One positive for Nicol was the setting — Toronto’s new sports complex — where, during the Pan Am Games last summer, she’d lopped an entire second from her personal best and claimed bronze in the 100-metre breaststroke, then helped to deliver silver in the 4 x 100-metre medley.
“It was nice going back to that familiar pool,” says Nicol. “Good feelings there.” Then and now. Because the 23-year-old breezed through her bread and butter, the 100-metre breaststroke, and, with a clocking of 1:06.88, easily satisfied the time standard.
A trip to Rio — and to the Land of Nod — was hers.
“Relief, for me, was the biggest thing,” says Nicol, “knowing that I would have a more sound sleep after that, knowing that I would be able to eat.”
Too, any second-guessing about training — which she’d geared specifically toward the 100-metre distance — had evaporated.
“I’d been saying, ‘Well, is that enough? Should I be doing this? Should I be doing that?’ ” she says. “Knowing that it had all gone according to plan, had all paid off in the end … relief, definitely.
“The trials, it’s a great meet. But for every one person that does well, you know there are five others who are crushed. Hard to watch sometimes.”
This marked Nicol’s third time through the Olympic qualification wringer.
In 2008 and 2012, she had not been a factor.
By April, though, she was more of a finished product. The Catholic Central High School graduate had just completed a decorated four years at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, an investment that resulted in more than just an applied-physiology degree and a raft of race ribbons.
“Moving to Texas was definitely one of the best decisions I ever made,” says Nicol. “I just needed a change. It was nice to move away and get away from Canadian swimming and swimming against the same eight to 10 people every single time. It was something different — completely, completely different — and I was on my own.
“I didn’t have parents around and it was nice to know I could do these things and still perform well and still do well in school and find myself.
“I learned that about myself, about myself as a swimmer. I became more independent as a swimmer, as a person. It worked out really well.”
Given her NCAA seasoning, given her Pan-Am Games breakthrough, Nicol realized she was not at the trials to merely participate.
Eyes, quite rightly, were trained on her.
“Going in, there was a bit of expectation,” she says. “I had done really well the year before. I definitely had those expectations on myself.”
Hopes now met, Nicol is at a camp in Toronto with fellow national-team members.
Next week, the Canadians are bound for Rio.
There, she’ll stroke on the world’s brightest stage.
“If I could make the ‘A’ final, I would be beyond ecstatic,” the Lethbridge Amateur Swim Club product says before swiftly changing tack. “Getting too caught up in the time and placing and other people — things you can’t control … I used to do that a lot when I was younger. I don’t really like looking at swimming that way anymore.”
Nicol, having survived the ordeal of the trials, insists she’s ready to compete at the Summer Games.
And ready to experience the Olympics. All in good time. “Swimming is in the first week,” says Nicol. “We get to stay in Rio after it’s done to enjoy all the cool stuff. We can go to volleyball games, we can go to basketball games. As soon as racing is finished for us, I can open my eyes to all the exciting things going on.”
But for every one person that does well, you know there are five others who are crushed. Hard to watch sometimes.