The 2016 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for swimming get underway on Sunday morning. It's eight days of competition in Omaha, Nebraska and it determines which athletes will comprise the U.S. Olympic Swim team for the games in Rio.
May 27th 2016, is a date that Michael Lagieski will remember for a lifetime. It’s a date where four years of training came down to two-tenths of a second.
You can look at it as a short amount of time, not many people know what two tenths of a second actually is, but in swimming it’s the world of a difference.
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Saturday, June 25
Men’s Olympic Diving Trials
Time: 3:30-5pm CST
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Men’s Olympic Diving Trials
Time: 7-8pm CST
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Men’s Olympic Gymnastics Trials Day 2
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A difference that made Lagieski’s goal of qualifying for the U.S. Swimming Olympic Team Trials a reality, thanks to a time of 1:03.46 in the 100 breast stroke at the Speedo Premier Spring Open on that day in May. A goal he first set out to accomplish in 2012, when he attended the trials as a spectator.
"I was very close every summer, but I was always a little bit off," said Lagieski. "The first summer I was about a half a second off, and then, the next two years I was less than three-tenths of a second and it was really hard to just keep coming back to it after those missed attempts."
Being in this weight room at Washington University was the difference maker for Lagieski this year--- as the Wash U junior credits being able to train on campus and use its weightlifting facilities this summer as the key ingredient to his success this time around. And every 5:30 AM wake-up call had this thought running through his mind.
"Just going back to four years ago and remembering what it was like to be there and remembering that desire that I had to in the pool with the best in the world. I just had to make a decision once that I wanted to be there and every early morning that I woke up I had to remember that decision and I just kept coming back to it."
This is the only meet where Lagieski will have the opportunity to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Swim team, his event is the 100 breast stroke, and the prelims begin Sunday morning, which you can watch right here on NewsChannel 5
