Flying through Olympic swim trials

By PEDRO VELAZCO
Tribune sportswriter

July 06, 2008 10:41 pm

— Even before he hit the pool Friday in Omaha, Neb., Chris Etherington was starting to grasp just how big, just how different an event he was entering.
Etherington, a former Western and Kokomo swimmer who won the 2005 state title in the 100-yard butterfly as a Wildkat, was at Omaha’s Qwest Center last week to compete in the 100-meter butterfly at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials. One look around told him a lot.
“… The competition floor, it just looks like it’s massive,” Etherington said of his first impressions upon taking in the Qwest Center. “Like in professional basketball games, they have a scoreboard up on top. That’s what they have above the pool. It’s kind of like you’re swimming at Conseco.”
Etherington swam the 100 fly in :55.76 to finish 87th out of 105 competitors Friday. That wasn’t good enough to move him through to the semifinals for Saturday’s final, but it was a great event to be a part of.
“It was awesome,” he said. “It was really cool walking out and swimming. I want to say there was maybe [8,000 or] 10,000 people. During the finals, it’s probably close to 20,000. It was an awesome experience.”
Etherington qualified for the Olympic trials with a :55.44 swim at the Indiana Senior Long Course Championship in July 2005. Later that year, he posted a personal best of :54.8. He hoped to eclipse that mark Friday but trying to keep the pace in his heat at the Olympic trials took a toll.
“The overall time, I wasn’t really happy about,” he said. “The first 50 of it was actually where I was supposed to be at [his split time was :25.67]. Probably halfway coming back I just started dying. My whole body felt like it was shutting down.”
With previous experience at the U.S. national meet, Etherington tried to tell himself that the Olympic trials would be like that. In a way it was, and in some key ways, it wasn’t.
“It’s kind of the same, but the atmosphere is totally different,” he said. “You look around and you see the Olympians from before and they’re like a family.”
Former Olympians gather in knots and pal around at the meet. Swimming superstar Michael Phelps ended up winning the butterfly final Saturday in a time of :50.89.
“They’re awesome, just awesome athletes,” Etherington said of the Olympic qualifiers. “You know how much time and effort they put in because it obviously shows.”
Phelps qualified for the Olympics in five individual events and set two world records along the way. Through Saturday’s action, nine world records had fallen.
“Every final is basically to see who can break the world record,” Etherington said.
After high school, Etherington swam a season for Purdue, finishing 21st in the NCAA meet in 2006. He now works and trains on his own in Indianapolis. He plans to continue swimming at a high level.
“I’m hopefully going to keep training for another eight years so I can make two more Olympic trials and see if I can get back up in the rankings,” Etherington said.
Prior to hitting the pool in Omaha, Etherington thought that advancing to the Olympics was out of reach, but he wanted to see where he stood in the nation.
“I feel like I could have done better, a lot better, but looking back and saying I’m ranked 87 in the United States in the 100 fly is really a good feeling,” Etherington said.

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