Not Done With 400 IM Yet, Chase Kalisz Still Thriving on Road to Paris

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Not Done With 400 IM Yet, Chase Kalisz Still Thriving on Road to Paris

Three years ago, in another midwestern city, Chase Kalisz volunteered that his days in the 400 IM might be over.

At that point, and he was keeping score, it was eight years of being on the national team as a 400 IMer. And after Olympic Trials in Omaha, prelims and finals in Tokyo might well be the last time the 27-year-old contested arguably the most grueling event in the sport.

“Maybe I should have taken that advice,” Kalisz said Sunday night in Indianapolis, barely pulling off a feinted ruefulness. “But I’ve kind of come full circle with swimming. And that race has been with me for so long.”

Kalisz has been around long enough that he’s completed all the circles, a few of which look like Olympic medals, of which oh by the way he has two in the 400 IM. He’ll be chasing a third in Paris, finishing a clear second Sunday to Carson Foster.

Foster set the fastest time in the world in 2024 at 4:07.64 to get to his first Olympics Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium. Kalisz was second in 4:09.39, the third-fastest in the world. At no point was Kalisz under pressure from his long-time training partner, Jay Litherland, the silver medalist in Tokyo, who was a distant third.

Foster’s tale Sunday had the edge in emotional content, bouncing back from his third-place and faster-than-gold time concurrent with the Olympics in 2021, but Kalisz remains the ever steady one. That exterior, though, belies the strength it’s taken him to get here.

Chase Kalisz; Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Just the brief, safe-for-mixed-zone version of 2024 from Kalisz: There was an altitude camp that went great and an altitude camp that went terribly, a blow to his confidence. There was the move from Arizona to Texas to follow long-time mentor Bob Bowman, with short-term rentals and new routines. There was a practice session just 13 days ago when Kalisz did a red-pace set that went so bad he pulled himself from the water.

“I have days where I’ve swum as fast as I ever have in my entire life at practice,” he said. “But I certainly have a lot more days that I swim worse than I ever had in practice. The biggest thing for me is recovery.”

The oddity of Kalisz in a Longhorn cap remains, and it’s the third cap he’s worn in this Olympic cycle, the long-time Georgia Bulldog following Bowman to Arizona State. He called himself, “probably the least affected in the group” by the change, but it’s an adjustment nonetheless.

“It does suck to kind of get uprooted,” he said. “I haven’t been home since the end of February. So it’s a little tough. I really just miss my dog. But other than that, I kind of operate pretty well on the road. It doesn’t really affect me much, but it’s certainly been an interesting few months.”

In the water, Kalisz is managing extremes, too. He said his sprinting is as strong as its ever been, but he was displeased with the way he faded late in the race, so much so that he dared not push his breaststroke leg too hard for fear of emptying the tank.

Kalisz is heartened by his tendency through the years to improve from trials meets to finals, irrespective of the few obvious changes to make at the moment. It’s led him to six medals at World Championships over a span of nearly a decade and now 11 years swimming the 400 IM internationally, a period of global relevance that enters increasingly rarefied air with every team he makes.

That stature brings emotions and responsibility. Kalisz shouldered the latter with aplomb in Tokyo as one of the leaders of the team. Sunday, it meant charting the dichotomy that was the exultation of Foster and the disappointment of his good mate Litherland.

“This is a long time coming for (Carson),” Chase Kalisz said. “I know he had a hard time the last Olympics and kind of dealing with that, and he’s grown so much since then and really coming to his own. It’s only fitting that he came here and got the job done individually and started his meet off with a bang. Carson’s got a great future.

“I’ve been on this journey a long, long time with Jay. He’s been my training partner for a long, long time. And the last two Olympics, it was an honor to have my teammate there. It’s the nature of the sport. It can be tough. It can be cruel. It can also be very fulfilling. As a person goes, there’s no better human than Jay. And it’s been a real honor to have him as my friend and my training partner for so long.”

It’s something that an old hand has come to know well.

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