OMAHA — Eleven-time Olympic medalist Ryan Lochte and his SwimMAC teammates had a "trip from hell," as Lochte put it, in getting from their Charlotte base to the Olympic swim trials Thursday — a journey that involved a diverted plane, an emergency landing, an impromptu workout at a YMCA in suburban Kansas City and a three-hour drive to Omaha in a pair of rental cars.
After their flight from Charlotte suffered an oxygen malfunction, the pilot took the plane down to 10,000 feet for about 45 minutes until he could make an emergency landing in Kansas City. Having planned to put his swimmers through a practice in Omaha that afternoon, SwimMAC Coach David Marsh — who doubles as head women’s coach for Team USA — instead found them a facility at the Platte County (Mo.) YMCA.
“We got there, and the lifeguards had no idea who we were,” Marsh said Friday. “One of the lap swimmers was like, ‘By gosh, they are moving through the water awfully fast.’ Then I started naming off everybody who was with us, and they were like, ‘Holy [expletive].’”
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After the practice, the swimmers and coaches piled into a pair of rental cars and made the drive to Omaha — arriving around 11 p.m., or about eight hours behind schedule.
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“A long travel day,” Lochte said. “But it was good in a way to get us out of our element. Dave’s always saying, ‘Prepare yourselves for the worst.’”
Secret’s out
Lochte, 31, surprised many in the sport by saying he intends to compete in the 400-meter individual medley at trials, an event he won at the 2012 London Olympics but has seldom swum since. He has been training for the event secretly in recent months and will swim it Sunday on the opening day of the trials.
“It’s one of the hardest events in the sport of swimming, and that’s why I love that event,” he said. “... You have to have a certain mind-set when you get up on those blocks, and if my mind-set is right, I’m definitely going to do really well.”
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Added Marsh: “He’s one of the guys in the United States that has four great strokes. ... If he’s the best guy to have on the blocks for the USA, then he ought to be the guy we try to have on the blocks. And if he’s not, then we will know in a couple of days.”
Ledecky on fence
Bruce Gemmell, the coach for 19-year-old freestyle phenom Katie Ledecky, said it is still a “50-50” proposition whether she will race the 400 IM and/or 50-meter freestyle — two events outside of her core program for which she has qualified for the trials and entered.
The 400 IM happens to fall on a day — Sunday — when Ledecky, the world record holder in the 400 and 800 freestyles and reigning world champion in the 200, has no other events.
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“It’s almost a case of, ‘Do you feel like swimming a 400 IM this morning, or would you rather just chill and not race until the next day?’” Gemmell said.
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Ledecky has swum the 400 IM at several meets this season and posted a personal best of 4:37.93 in Atlanta in May, good enough to be seeded fifth at the Olympic trials. ...
Four-time Olympic gold medalist Dana Vollmer has her 15-month-old son, Arlen, with her in Omaha but will be staying separately from him during the meet while her husband, Andy Grant, stays with Arlen. They will be in the same hotel — but, she stressed, not in adjoining rooms.
“The whole point was to not have me hear him cry if he’s up at night and just really try to focus on getting good sleep while I’m here,” said Vollmer, 28. “I’ll get to see Arlen when I write Andy and say, ‘Hey, I’m ready. I have time right now. I have the energy.’ And I definitely want to see him a little bit every day.”
Vollmer is the top seed in Omaha for the 100-meter butterfly, the third seed in the 100 free and the fifth seed in the 50 free.
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