Silver for Kalisz: ‘How could I not be happy?’

coach Bob Bowman.

On Saturday night, in the first swimming final of these Olympics, he made good on those ambitions, blasting through his signature race in 4 minutes, 6.75 seconds. Hagino won in 4:6.05. Japan’s Daiya Seto won bronze.

I’m “unbelievably proud,” Bowman said in the moments after. “It was an awesome swim.”

In other action on the first day of Olympic swimming, Katie Ledecky made her Rio debut with a blistering anchor split as the U.S. women qualified second in the 4x100-meter freestyle relay, a race that also included Phelps’ and Kalisz’s training partner, Allison Schmitt.

Ledecky and Schmitt later picked up silver medals in the event as the United States pushed heavily favored Australia in the final.

Some observers had speculated Ledecky did not deserve a spot in the relay after her seventh-place finish in the 100-meter freestyle at the Olympic trials.

As usual, the 19-year old Bethesda resident responded by swimming faster than most thought possible.

She was so good that U.S. women’s coach David Marsh also put her in the anchor spot for the relay final as well.

Ledecky will likely chase her own world record in one of her signature events, the 400-meter freestyle, today. And she’ll swim in three more events after that.

“I think it bodes well for the rest of the week,” she said of her first race.

For Kalisz, however, Saturday was it, and he wasted no time seizing the moment.

After fantasizing about the games for the better part of his 22 years, he delivered the fastest 400 IM of his life the first time he jumped into an Olympic pool.

He was flabbergasted when he glanced up at his time after touching the wall just ahead of Seto in the afternoon preliminary. The board read 4:08.12, more than a second ahead of his personal best.

“I didn’t expect to go anywhere near that,” he said. His goal had been 4:11.

It was the kind of time he had known he would need to be competitive with the Japanese favorites, Seto and Hagino. And Kalisz wasn’t even particularly tired.

He felt unusually tense at the Olympic trials, six weeks earlier. Bowman noticed it from the moment he walked out for the 400 IM final there.

“I was operating on nerves, which is not a good thing for me,” Kalisz said Saturday afternoon. “That’s not how I am. I’m operating on excitement right now, just enjoying being here. I think that’s the difference.”

“Treat it like a normal swim meet,” Phelps had told him of the Olympics.

Phelps treats Kalisz as if he were a little brother, and for years, he tormented him in practice. He was so harsh at times that Bowman, no gentle voice in his own right, asked him to ease off.

But Kalisz has always maintained he’s grateful for the pressure from both his mentor and his coach.

“I know they’re doing it because they love and care about me, and they genuinely want to see the best out of me,” he said.

Phelps’ affection for the kid who used to follow him around the Meadowbrook Aquatic Center is apparent. His eyes filled with tears and he thrust both fists into the air when he watched Kalisz clinch his spot in the Olympics.

Because he looked up to Phelps and because Bowman is such an advocate for practicing every stroke and building a deep fitness base, Kalisz seemed almost destined to swim the 400 IM.

Many swimmers speak of it as one of the sport’s ultimate torture tests. Phelps, who won gold in the 400 IM in 2004 and 2008, no longer swims the race because it would drain his 31-year-old body too severely.

Kalisz recalled many tedious mornings when Bowman would throw him in a distance lane to grind out laps while his training partners had fun practicing sprints.

“Without Bob, I probably wouldn’t be doing the 400 IM because I probably wouldn’t want to be doing it,” Kalisz said at the trials. “But Bob is good at pushing you and getting the best out of you.”

He was a “little upset” not to live up to the golden legacies of Phelps and Ryan Lochte. “But look at this thing,” he said, nodding to the disc of silver in his hand. “How could I not be happy?”

Kalisz is the most accomplished member of one of the country’s most successful swimming families. Each of his three siblings have qualified for at least one Olympic trials, and his sister Courtney was on track to become an Olympian herself until she was derailed by an ankle injury.

His parents, Mike and Cathy Kalisz, flew to Rio on Friday morning, and they couldn’t quite believe that after 20 years of shuttling four kids between meets and practices, they were watching one in the Olympics.

“It’s just the coolest thing,” Mike Kalisz said. “There could be an international incident tonight, because we’re celebrating.”