Sean Ryan’s spring and summer plans have changed.
The McCallie School sophomore swimmer had scheduled to train in upcoming months with hopes of qualifying for the U.S. Open national championships. He attained that goal last weekend during a meet in Nashville, but he also qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials with a career-best showing in the 1500-meter freestyle.
“Now I’m having to start training even harder than I thought,” Ryan said.
Ryan is the first McCallie swimmer to qualify for the Olympic Trials, according to Blue Tornado coach Stan Corcoran, but joins a growing list of recent Chattanooga-area performers. Former GPS and Auburn University breaststroker Annemieke McReynolds competed at the 1996 and 2000 Trials, as did the former Baylor trio of Will Brandt (100 breast in 2000), Stephanie Napier (50 free in 2004) and Ryan Bishop (200 breast, 200 individual medley and 400 IM in 2004).
Considering he will compete at the Trials more than a month before he receives his driver’s license, Ryan is easily the youngest of the bunch.
“When Will Brandt went, and I’m not taking anything away from him, he was a senior in high school,” Corcoran said. “Sean is just a skinny sophomore. Michael Phelps qualified in this event. He’s not going to be swimming it, but Sean is going to be standing up on the blocks against people like that.”
Said the 6-foot-2, 140-pound Hixson resident: “I’m used to it, because I’ve raced against college guys. We went to an Auburn meet, and I was swimming in a 500 heat with all the Auburn guys, and they were all huge.”
The Olympic Trials will be held June 29-July 6 in Omaha, Neb. Ryan will swim in the 1500-meter preliminaries on July 5, with finals set for the next day.
Representing the Scenic City Aquatic Club, Ryan entered last weekend’s Speedo Southeastern Sectional Championships needing to swim faster than 15 minutes, 53.59 seconds to qualify and went 15:52.35. He has the fastest 1500-meter time of any 15-year-old in the country, as well as the top 800-meter (8:20.03) and 400-meter (4:02.80) freestyle times.
“I’m feeling pretty good right now,” he said. “It didn’t really sink in until I started looking at the U.S. Swimming Web site and all the dates so I could make plans and stuff. I never ruled this out, but I knew it was going to be a long shot.”
According to Corcoran, Ryan is currently around 160th in the world in the 1500 free.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Corcoran said. “He dropped 28 seconds in seven months to make his Trial cut. You can drop 28 seconds in an event like the mile, but it’s usually somebody who goes 23 minutes and drops down to 22.”
Ryan qualified for the U.S. Open in the 800 and 1500 events. That meet takes place at Minneapolis in late July.
David Paschall is a sports writer for the Times Free Press. He started at the Chattanooga Free Press in 1990 and was part of the Times Free Press when the paper started in 1999. David covers University of Georgia football, as well as SEC football recruiting, SEC basketball, Chattanooga Lookouts baseball and other sports stories. He is a Chattanooga native and graduate of the Baylor School and Auburn University. David has received numerous honors for ...
