Editorial Coverage Sponsored By FINIS
By David Rieder
Brittany MacLean’s eyes welled with tears as she covered her face. After battling injuries in the two years since winning NCAA titles in the 500 and 1650 free her sophomore season, MacLean was on top of the podium once again—in the 200 free.
“I never would have thought I would win the 200 free. Today I’m a ‘sprinter,’” MacLean said after the race.
MacLean still had one day left in her Georgia Bulldogs career after that, and she needed a pair of big swims to ensure that Georgia would win the NCAA team title for the third time in her four years.
But in the 1650, Leah Smith took an early lead that MacLean could never cut into, and she finished more than six seconds behind in 15:39.29. She was not pleased with her time and called the race most painful mile of her life, but there was more work to be done.
“I had never done a 400 free relay in my whole career at Georgia, let alone at probably the biggest stage in the last meet of my career. The whole meet was on the line with one more race to go after the Stanford diver had won the [platform] event,” MacLean said. “[Georgia head coach] Jack [Baurele] just looked at me and was like, ‘There’s no one I’d rather have in a relay like that.’”
MacLean came through with a 47.64 relay split—her personal best time—and then greeted relay anchor and fellow senior Hali Flickinger with the news that the Bulldogs had, by finishing second in the relay, done more than enough to hold off Stanford for the team title that few had expected.
“I remember addressing the team at the beginning of the year thinking, ‘Okay, we have a chance of doing something cool here,’ but realistically our goal was top-five, top-six in the country. We knew we had lost some huge names,” MacLean said. “It was definitely one of the sporting moments you dream of.”
Photo Courtesy: Reagan Lunn/Georgia Tech Athletics
After an emotional night in Atlanta, most of the Bulldog women had a bit of time to relax before getting back into training in preparation for U.S. Olympic Trials three months down the line. But MacLean had a more pressing deadline—Canada’s Olympic Trials would begin in two weeks.
MacLean was back in the water less than 48 hours after finishing her college career—“I think they gave me Monday morning off because it was apparent that I needed some rest,” she said. She had just 11 days to get back in shape before flying home to Toronto.
MacLean had swum in the new Toronto pool the year before at the Pan American Games, but she finished a disappointing fourth in the 800 free at that meet while still returning to form after injuries derailed her junior season at Georgia. Trials was her shot at redemption.
MacLean was confident in her ability to make the Olympic team, but heading to her third taper meet in two months (following the SEC and NCAA championships) and coming off a lack of long course success since 2014, she was unsure of exactly what to expect—until her first race, when she posted the top qualifying time in the 400 free prelims with a 4:07.82.
“I was pretty relaxed in my first 400 in the prelims,” MacLean said. “I wasn’t necessarily coming home with my legs or anything. I looked up and touched the wall and thought, ‘Wow, I think I can go a best time here.’”
That night, MacLean won the event in 4:03.84, breaking her own Canadian record. She set another national record two days later with a 1:56.91 in the 200 free, and she also won the 800 in 8:21.64, just short of her own national record. Entering the Olympics, MacLean ranks sixth in the world in the 400 and tied for fourth in the 800.
Rio will be MacLean’s second Olympics, and this time, she goes in with a real shot at winning a medal. Much has changed since four years ago in London when few expected much of anything from the then-18-year-old known more for being on the same Olympic team with older sister Heather.
That was until Brittany swam the prelims of the 400 free and posted a time of 4:05.06, breaking the Canadian record and securing herself a spot in her first Olympic final—and a lane next to the defending Olympic gold medalist and hometown hero.
“I was in lane seven, and in lane eight was Rebecca Adlington. I just remember the sound of that place—it just was this roar when she walked out. When I walked out, I was like, ‘oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into?’ That was the first moment, honestly, that I actually felt nervous.”
MacLean finished seventh in that final and helped Canada finish fourth in the 800 free relay with a 1:56.46 anchor split. The U.S. won gold in that same race with a squad that included Allison Schmitt and Shannon Vreeland, who just a few weeks later would become MacLean’s new teammates at Georgia.
MacLean will have plenty of familiar faces with her at the Olympics this time—seven of her former teammates at Georgia qualified to represent the U.S. in Rio. That list includes Flickinger and Chase Kalisz, who enrolled at Georgia with MacLean in the fall of 2012, as well as Olivia Smoliga and Jay Litherland, who MacLean considered “shoe-ins” to make the team.
“He can close better than anyone in this world can close,” MacLean said of Litherland. “I just instantaneously started bawling when [I watched] Jay touch the wall. My mom got the whole thing on tape, and my sister is holding me as I’m bawling my eyes out.”
MacLean had her own priorities to worry about during the last week of June—like getting ready for the Olympics—but she reserved time in front of her television for eight straight nights so she could go through the familiar emotions of an Olympic Trials with her teammates 1000 miles away in Omaha, Neb.
“We had provincial championships at my home pool,” she said. “I was swimming on the second weekend of [Trials], and I was trying to make sure they did our sessions pretty fast so I could be home by 8 p.m.”
None of the results surprised MacLean, who had stayed in Athens until the week before the team left for Omaha rather than heading home as soon as classes ended as she had in previous years. As she prepared for the Olympics, MacLean wanted to get in as much pool time as possible with Georgia distance coach Harvey Humphries, whose training she calls “the most productive and the most beneficial thing I’ve ever done.”
With just weeks to go before her second Olympics, MacLean believes she has trained better than ever before, and she knows what to expect—though she bristles at being called a “veteran,” even though she has far more international racing experience than Canada’s roster of mostly first-time Olympians.
But her relatively advanced age does not stop MacLean from admiring the likes of Audrey Lacroix, 32 years old and headed to her third Olympics in Rio, or Ryan Cochrane, who has won a medal in the 1500 free at every major international meet since 2008.
“I’ve always looked up to Ryan. He’s always been the greatest advocate for Canadian swimming,” MacLean said. “From a girl who’s had a very up-and-down career, it’s cool to see someone that’s so consistently there for Canada and winning medals.”
Canada won a pair of swimming medals at the 2012 Olympics with Cochrane’s silver in the mile and Brent Hayden’s bronze medal in the 100 free. But the Canadian women have not climbed the podium since Marianne Limpert got the silver in the 200 IM two decades ago in Atlanta, a drought that MacLean admits she feels some pressure to end.
But as proud as MacLean is to represent both her school and her country, she is perhaps most pleased with all the progress she’s made after the setbacks of 2015.
“It’s crazy—if you would have asked me last year, I wouldn’t know if I would even be swimming right now,” she said.
A few months’ break after Pan Ams helped MacLean reset mentally and physically. Rather than focusing on ambitious time and place goals for her senior season and the Olympic season, MacLean was more concerned with falling in love with the sport again and giving everything she had in the water.
“Luckily, I’ve been able to stay healthy and put in the most insane training that I’ve ever done. There’s just so many days where I think that I’ve never pushed my body like that and that I’ve had enough, but then I think back to these moments, and they’re all worth it,” she said.
“And that’s the coolest thing about going to the Games this summer—obviously I get to do it alongside my teammates, and it’s going to be an incredible experience, and it’s the Olympic Games. But I’ve never gone into a meet knowing I’ve done every single thing I could and knowing that I have no regrets.”
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