Jamie Kolar - (Author)

A Letter To the Coach Who Left Me Throughout our careers, we will have relationships with a few different coaches. If we are lucky, we will get to know and be close to a few. Those relationships will be some of the most important and influential ones of your career and life. They mean a lot to you -...

Olympic Trials Day 8 Prelims: Bobby Finke Top Seed; Charlie Clark Second The newly qualified Olympian in the 800-meter freestyle, Luke Whitlock, was back route to another Trials final, in an attempt to add another event to his Olympic roster in Paris. Whitlock was challenged by NCAA qualifier, Charl...

U.S. Olympic Trials: Kate Douglass and Alex Walsh Set Up for Epic Final in 200 IM The Virginia sabers will be out Saturday night for the final heat of the women’s 200 IM between Kate Douglass and Alex Walsh. The two Virginians took no prisoners in their respective heats in the semifinal heats, howev...

U.S Olympic Trials Day 6 Prelims: Katie Ledecky Stays True to Form in First: Ashley Twichell Sneaks In In an event where the audience generally knows the outcome of the first-place finisher, we were left debating who was going to occupy the remaining seven spots in the final on Saturday, especially ...

U.S. Olympic Trials Day 6: Regan Smith Return to Top Seed Position The American women are going to have to fight tooth and nail through the final of the event – just to qualify for the semifinals was a half of second faster than in was in 2021.  The semifinal just proved that fact – with the top thr...

Olympic Trials Day 6: Carson Foster Narrows Out Maximus Williamson For Top Seed The pressure is on for the contenders of the 200 IM as they head into semifinal as this event will be close to, if not the last opportunity to qualify for the 2024 Paris games. In the first heat of the circle, Chase Kali...

Kelsi Dahlia captured the swimming world’s hearts in 2016 when she qualified for her first Olympic team in 2016 in the 100 butterfly. Who can forget the moment that was captured of the Worrell family embracing her after her victory in the 100-meter butterfly in Omaha. On the flip side, who can forge...

U.S. Olympic Trials: Keaton Jones Takes Ownership of the Top Seed in 200 Back; Ryan Murphy Second In a semifinal that was stacked with men who registered times under the two-minute mark this morning, they surely were fighting for the coveted eight spots in the final. They all fought hard, as all qua...

Olympic Trials Day 4: Smith Answers Back with a Top Seed In what has shaped up to be a Texas showdown for Thursday night’s final, American record holder Regan Smith was in clear control of her heat of the semifinals Wednesday night. She was out in a 59.01, right on pace with her American record on t...

Olympic Trials Day 4 Prelims: Alex Shackell Leads Reagan Smith in 200 Butterfly Regan Smith returned to the pool this morning to compete in the women’s 200-meter butterfly, holding true to her word in that she had other events to focus on this week – and she was put to work this morning by 17-year-o...

Olympic Trials Day 4 Finals: Nic Fink Stays Alive in Men’s 200 Breaststroke; Fallon Top Seed A tight semifinal heat of the men’s 200-meter breaststroke rounded out night four of Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. With 15 swimmers going under the 2:12 mark this morning to qualify for the event, it was b...

Olympic Trials Day 4 Prelims: Katie Ledecky, Katie Grimes Lead 1500 Finals Qualifiers To no one’s surprise, the distance queen, Katie Ledecky, continued her dominance, finishing with the top time in the prelim session of the 1500-meter freestyle. Ledecky held control throughout the entirety of the h...

Olympic Trials Day 2 Prelims: Hunter Armstrong Takes Top Seed Ahead of Ryan Murphy As the flags lowered on the pool at Lucas Oil Stadium, the long-standing Olympic history of American excellence started to take shape in Indianapolis this morning with veteran, Ryan Murphy making his first appearance ...

Our Away-From-The Pool Heroes: The Debt That All Swimmers Owe By Jamie Kolar, Swimming World College Intern. Swimmers live busy lives. We never stop moving from the moment we wake up until the moment our head hits the pillow at night. We wake up, run to practice, run to class and then run to practic...

A Conversation with an Unlikely Best Friend: The Black Line By Jamie Kolar Swimming is unlike any other sport. It is the only sport where you cannot talk to any other person or coach during most of the practice or during a race, allowing for a lot of time alone. Being alone for those extended period...

By Jamie Kolar, Swimming World College Intern. Since the beginning of time, humans have been asking a simple existential question: Who am I? This question can be followed with subsequent questions of what makes me special? What is my purpose? These questions all get down to our deep desire to know w...

The Confessions of a Back-Halfer Swimming World continues a brief series from the archive that identifies confessions of specific types of swimmers. Previously, articles discussed the confessions of a distance swimmer and the confessions of a butterflyer. By Jamie Kolar, Swimming World College Inter...

Two Lies And A Truth: How Individuals Can View the Sport By Jamie Kolar Being in the water in swimming can be seen as a blessing because it can block out the rest of the world for a brief two-hour period. However, every blessing has its curse. The water can trap us in solitary confinement with our o...

Bidding Final Farewell to Coach is One of Most Difficult Aspects of Swimming and Life Jamie Kolar was a former intern with Swimming World and continues as a regular contributor In swimming, we generally think of losses in terms of racing or even practice. Losing a race, losing a bet with your coach ...

Swimmers are Control Freaks: The Paradox of Control What is control? Is it power? Is it dominance? For the majority of history, human kind has fought for control, and that is especially true for swimmers. While we have lost men, time and sometimes blood, we have stopped at nothing to deem ourselves ...