La Selva’s Andrew Porter won’t be star-struck when he steps on the pool deck at the USA Swimming Olympic Trials in Omaha, Neb., this week.
How can you be when your poolmate is Michael Phelps?
“No, I kind of met or know most of the top athletes now, either from the University of Arizona or being here with this group of individuals and hanging out at swim meets,” the former Monte Vista Christian School standout said. “Everybody has been fantastic and supportive.”
Porter recently transferred from Arizona to Arizona State and has been training under Sun Devils first-year head coach Bob Bowman. Bowman happens to be Phelps’ longtime coach from the North Baltimore Aquatic Club. And when he accepted the ASU job a year ago, he brought the Olympics’ most decorated athlete as well as several of the other elite professional swimmers who were training with him to Tempe.
Many of them, including three-time gold medalist Allison Schmitt, will compete this week in a pool built in the middle of a basketball arena. They will be joined by three Santa Cruz-area swimmers: Porter, and Santa Cruz’s Sarah Shimomura and Elise Locke.
Shimomura, who graduated from Archbishop Mitty and now swims for Arizona, will compete in the 400-meter freestyle and the 200 free. She is ranked No. 61 and 87 in those events, respectively. Locke, who graduated from Presentation, is seeded No. 100 in the 200 butterfly.
Shimomura said she missed qualifying in the 200 free by half a second during the last Olympic cycle. She decided she had to qualify this year, though she has no goals of making the actual Olympic team.
“I want to go and just try and have fun and make the most out of it,” Shimomura said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Seeing 10,000 people in the stands isn’t something you see at a swim meet.
“It’s probably the biggest meet of my life. I’m trying not to listen to my nerves.”
Porter has loftier aspirations. Re-energized by Bowman, calmed by experience and armed with a few new techniques he picked up from his poolmates, he is holding out hope he might reach the final in his two events: the 200 Individual Medley and the 100 fly. Though he is seeded No. 27 and No. 25 in those events, respectively, he believes he might be able to break into the top two, securing himself a spot in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“I came back with the intention of just reaching a best time by quite a bit. That will hopefully put me in contention for a spot,” said Porter, who recently spent a week with Bowman’s pros at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. “I’m quite a bit off right now, but I’ve trained with the best, I have the best coach in the world … I don’t think it’s impossible.”
It’s a lot to ask for from someone who a year ago considered throwing in the towel on the sport.
Already feeling burned out on competitive swimming, Porter broke his wrist last year while riding a mountain bike. He withdrew from Arizona, asked for his release from the swimming program and came home. He returned to Arizona this spring to complete his junior year but did not return to competition.
“It kind of took this crippling moment to step back and say, ‘I really do have a gift for this,’” he said, noting he had a resurgence of faith during his hiatus. “It’s not all about me, not everyone is blessed with something like this. I can’t just push it aside, I have to see where I can go with this.”
So, he sought other options. He found Bowman, who also happens to have been recently named the head men’s swim coach for Team USA at the Rio Olympics.
“It’s Bob Bowman, you can’t get much better than that,” Porter said. “Plus the possibility of training with ‘Michael Butterflies’ is huge. I’ve learned a lot.”
He hopes to show how much this week with at least an improvement over his performances from 2012. That year, he took 25th in the 200 IM in 2 minutes, 3.67 seconds and 41st in the 400 IM (4:27.22).
He said he remembers feeling giddy about going up against swimmers like Phelps, Ryan Lochte and Conor Dwyer four years ago. This time, he has some reverence for the meet’s place in history.
“This is sort of end of an era, this Olympic trials,” said Porter, who plans to compete in them again in 2020. “A lot of people coming are never coming back. So I’m going to enjoy things here and also get done what I want to get done.”
Contact Julie Jag at 831-706-3257.
