Men's Swimmers' Olympic Bids Come Up Short

Contrary to what you may have heard, teen phenom Michael Phelps wasn’t the only men’s swimmer at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials from July 7-14 in Long Beach, Calif.

Seven current or former members of the Harvard men’s swimming and diving team vied for a spot on the Athens-bound squad, though each was downed in turn by the star-studded field.

The Crimson swimmers, primarily swimming under the affiliation “Bay and Ocean State Squids”—a reference to a club team headed by coach Tim Murphy with its home base at Blodgett Pool—were led by James Lawler, who spent a year away from the College in anticipation of the trials.

Lawler placed eighth in the final heat of the 100-meter butterfly against a field featuring more than one likely Olympic medalist. Ian Crocker broke his own world record by 0.22 seconds with a time of 50.76 seconds, besting Phelps by 0.39 seconds.

Lawler was in sixth place coming out of the turn, just 0.01 seconds behind his closest opponent, but struggled compared to the rest of the field in the second 50 meters, dropping back to eighth place at 54.65 seconds.

Rising senior Ryan Smith placed 43rd in the event.

Lawler also finished 14th in the 200-meter butterfly with a time of 2:01.70, while former teammate and Crimson captain Dan Shevchik was disqualified from that event. Shevchik captured 23rd in the 400-meter individual medley and 17th in the 200-yard backstroke—nine places lower than in 2000.

Since Shevchik’s graduation, rising junior David Cromwell has dominated the backstroke events for Harvard, but he was unable to meet the qualifying time for the 200-meter race in an approved meet though he and several of his teammates spent several weeks in May and June training together to gear up for the trials.

“I was pretty bummed because I was All-American in the 200 and I didn’t get to swim because i didn’t have the qualification time,” Cromwell said. “My time from [a local YMCA meet last week] would have put me in the top 16. That was a little tough to swallow.”

Still, despite being able to compete only in his second-strongest event—the 100-meter backstroke—Cromwell turned in one of his faster times of the season, 57.71 seconds. Reigning NCAA champion Aaron Peirsol, a rising junior at Texas, placed first in 53.64.

John Cole, who, like Lawler, spent his the 2003-2004 academic year away from the University to dedicate himself to Olympic training, placed 14th in the 28-man 1,500-meter freestyle field—two spots below his finish two years ago.

Recent graduate Rassan Grant placed 23rd in the 100-meter breaststroke, and rising junior Mark Knepley placed 27th in the 100-meter freestyle.

Though offering no excuses, Cromwell suggested that the timing of finals and commitments to schoolwork may have slowed many of the swimmers’ times from their targets.

“I think we trained decently,” Cromwell said. “We hit a little bit of a hitch with finals and the end of school...The four of us who were swimming all year [for Harvard] weren’t as prepared as we would have liked to have been.”

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.