Junior high student to swim in Olympic trials
June 11, 2008
By J.B. Wogan
Katie Kinnear, 13, qualifies to compete with elite swimmers
On May 16, Katie Kinnear, 13, became the third person from Sammamish to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials in August.
Kinnear swam the 100-meter butterfly in 1 minute, 2.29 seconds at the Pacific Coast Invitational meet.
“It was my goal for the summer. I didn’t expect to get it that soon,” said Kinnear, an eighth grader at Inglewood Junior High who plans to swim for Eastlake High School next year.
Kinnear will join the ranks of Skyline sophomore Andie Taylor and 26 year-old Troy Davidson of Renton, at the trials in Omaha, Neb.
Taylor, 16, had qualified for the 100, 200, 400 and 800 freestyle events, as well as the 200 backstroke, 200 butterfly, and the 200 and 400 individual medley.
Davidson qualified in the 50 freestyle.
This is Kinnear’s first time qualifying for the Olympic trials. At 13, she will be one of the youngest, if not the youngest, competitor in her event, according to Kyle Johnson, Kinnear’s main swim coach.
“To get to this level, she started many years ago,” said Johnson, the head coach and program director of the Issaquah Sockeyes swim club at Boehm Pool in Issaquah. “Katie’s been in our program since 7 or 8 years old.”
Kinnear undergoes at least 10 practice sessions each week, waking up to swim at 5 a.m. three to four mornings, and then returning to the water every weekday for an afternoon session.
On Saturdays, she gets back in the pool for another two hours, according to Johnson.
“We’re really encouraging the progress that she’s made, obviously,” said Johnson.
“It’s exciting,” said Scott Kinnear, Katie’s father. “She’s worked really hard for it.”
“It’s good to see her achieve her goal, but also a little scary to watch her go off and swim against all these big people,” Scott added. “She’s just 13 and she’ll be swimming with 20-some year olds. You see them on the starting blocks and it’s, you know, big, small, big.”
Katie said her time at the May 16 meet was also a bit of a shock.
“That one we didn’t really taper for much, but some meets we just swim through while working hard, without tapering,” she said. Tapering is a training strategy where swimmers will lessen the difficulty and frequency of workouts in the days and weeks prior to an important meet.
Between now and August, Kinnear will try to shave down her current time by tweaking technical inefficiencies Johnson and his team noticed while replaying her qualifying race on tape.
“We’ve been able to identify some areas, as far as some technical pieces – turning and starts – that we can polish up here leading into trials,” said Johnson.
“I lost some distance under water,” said Kinnear, explaining that some of her competitors managed to take advantage of the frictionless environment beneath the waves, which allows them to move faster.
Scott said the tendency towards self-improvement, even after a major achievement like qualifying for the Olympic trials, was typical of his daughter.
“She’s made her cut, she got there, she was happy for about three days, and then she kind of said, ‘Hmm, wow, now I’ve got to go swim there,’” he observed. “So she’s kind of refocused.”
But Johnson added that with small adjustments, Kinnear could reap big rewards in her swim time.
“I see, without putting the pressure on her, realistically, another second to a second and a half time drop in her,” said Johnson.
Kinnear already dropped nearly two seconds off her 100 butterfly time from the May 3 Pacific Northwest May Flowers meet, where she recorded a 1:03.56 in the same event.
Even with the potential improvements, Kinnear said she has low expectations about her chances of qualifying for the Olympics this summer.
“It’s good to get experience this year for maybe in four years, if I wanted to go to the Olympics. This year it’s just about experience,” said Kinnear. “There’s no real possibility that I could go this year. There’s, like, really fast people.”
Still, the potential of what Kinnear could become in four years has her coaches wondering.
Johnson said he expects she will be competing on an international stage by then.
One of Kinnear’s other coaches, Ryan Pachciarz pointed out that Scott Kinnear is 6-foot-1, and his wife Debbie is 5-foot-11.
At age 13 and just 5-foot-7, Katie could add a few inches to her wing span, thus increasing her ability power through the water, within the next few years.
To see a video of Katie qualifying for the Olympic trials, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5lOyyo0agM.
Reporter J.B. Wogan can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 247, or jbwogan@isspress.com.
This version corrects the hometown of Troy Davidson.
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