Olympic gold medalist and new mom Dana Vollmer eyes Rio
Dana Vollmer thought she knew pain until 22 hours of labor, 12 without an epidural. She believed she left everything in the pool every day until Arlen Jackson Grant showed her she has more to give.
Vollmer’s world changed March 6 with the birth of her first child.
Now, Vollmer, who has four Olympic gold medals and 16 world championship medals, knows she has it all.
“It definitely broadens your perspective on what’s important and what matters in life,” Vollmer said in a phone interview. “Swimming was my entire world, and getting married [to Andy Grant in 2011] changed that a lot to know that I have someone who, regardless of how I swam, wanted to love me for the rest of my life.
“Having Arlen and knowing that he’s probably not even going to remember me swimming, it just really opens your eyes and frees me up from a lot with pressure and expectations on myself.
“I’m doing this really because I love it, and I want to challenge myself, and that’s it. That’s really an empowering place to come from.”
Vollmer has found her happy place. On the way, she’s overcome a heart condition, food allergies, a knee injury, a back injury, a shoulder injury, the mental pressure that comes with competition and a failed bid for the 2008 Games.
Vollmer, 27, has amazed even herself at how far she has come.
Now, she’s on the comeback trail.
The former world record-holder in the 100 butterfly — her record was broken Aug. 2 — resumed training in May after an almost two-year break. Last month, Vollmer competed for the first time since the 2013 World Championships when she won the bronze in 57.24. She clocked a 1:00.5 in the prelims at the Los Angeles Invitational and finished sixth in the final in 1:00.72. Egypt’s Farida Osman won in 58.76.
On Thursday night, Vollmer finished fourth (58.94) in the 100 butterfly at the Phillips 66 National Championships in San Antonio.
“We were talking about things, and I said, ‘I’ve never worked with anyone who just had a baby four months ago,’” said University of California coach Teri McKeever, Vollmer’s personal coach and the U.S. women’s Olympic swim coach for London in 2012. “I think it’s kind of important just to recognize that this is new for her and not get too bogged down in comparing it to what you used to do before or anything like that.”
For the last three years, every swimmer in the 100 fly has chased Vollmer even while she wasn’t swimming.
The 55.98 Vollmer swam in the finals of the London Games gave her the Olympic gold medal and the world record. Sweden’s Sarah Sjöström captured the record with a time of 55.74 on Aug. 2 at the Wold Championships.
With the 2016 Olympics as the “ultimate goal,” Vollmer has only a year to get fast enough to beat out the likes of Kelsi Worrell, Kendyl Stewart, Katie McLaughlin and Dallas-born Claire Donahue in the Olympic Trials. The top two Americans in Omaha, Neb., next summer earn berths to Rio, where Sjöström, Russia’s Anna Polyakova, China’s Zhou Yilin and Japan’s Rikako Ikee likely await.
“I want that [Olympic] goal, and I want to make it there, and I want to see how fast I can go,” said Vollmer, who grew up in Granbury but now lives in California. “It’s also a day-by-day thing. It’s can I manage this comeback and putting Arlen first and making sure that my family is taken care of. I’m hoping I can find a really good balance and will absolutely love it.”
Vollmer hired a nanny to help with Arlen and be “an extra set of hands.” She found a physical therapist to help her manage a shoulder injury. She returned to McKeever’s program to get back in shape, challenge her body and push her to see how far — and how fast — she can go.
“I’m really proud of what she and I have been able to accomplish, and I’m really proud of her just saying, ‘Hey, I want to kind of give this a try,’” McKeever said. “What I love is our environment, which allows a new group of women to be around her every day and get to know her, and her to give them insight, and that’s a win-win for our program and Cal. That’s been really awesome.”
The progress Vollmer has made in only a few weeks of training excites her about the future, whatever that holds.
“I feel like I’ve made such huge strides,” Vollmer said. “...Teri was saying that, ‘We have a year, and while that seems short, that’s also a lot of time when we’re making these strides and putting in such good efforts.’”
Charean Williams, 817-390-7760
Rio 2016
Aug. 5-21, 2016, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Games at a glance
▪ Twenty-eight sports and 38 disciplines will be contested in Rio, including the return of golf (for the first time in 112 years) and rugby (for the first time since 1924).
▪ Team USA took a 529-member contingent to the 2012 London Olympics.
▪ The dates for key U.S. Olympic team trials in 2016 (plenty of Texans will be competing): women’s gymnastics, July 8-10, St. Louis; men’s gymnastics, June 24-26, St. Louis; swimming, June 26-July 3, Omaha, Neb.; track and field, July 1-10, Eugene, Ore.
▪ The Games will be televised from the opening ceremony to the closing ceremony by NBC and its affiliates.
▪ Rio tidbits: This is the first Olympics held in South America ...The competition venues are located in four Olympic zones — Barra, Copacabana, Deodoro and Maracanã ...The mascot is Vinicius, a mix of all Brazilian animals (Tom, a mix of Brazilian plants, is the Paralympic Games mascot) ...Rio de Janeiro is known as the “Marvelous City” ...This will be the XXXI Olympiad.
This story was originally published August 7, 2015 at 11:50 PM with the headline "Olympic gold medalist and new mom Dana Vollmer eyes Rio."