Swimmer Katie Meili wants to make the most of her first Olympics

Swimmer Katie Meili feels sort of a surreal euphoria about her impending trip to Rio de Janeiro for the Olympic Games.

Sometimes it’s difficult to express her emotions.

“It’s crazy,” the 25-year-old former Colleyville resident said during a recent break in the Olympic team training camp. “I can’t even put this into words. I mean, it’s a lifelong dream.”

Meili, a 2009 Nolan Catholic High School graduate, qualified for her first trip to the Summer Games last month at the U.S. Trials in Omaha, Neb.

She said she wanted to thank everyone who has helped her along the way during a 17-year swimming career.

“I’m feeling a lot of gratitude because I certainly wouldn’t be here without great family, friends and teammates,” Meili said. “So, that’s been really key for me. It’s just exciting. It almost doesn’t feel real. It’s been a bit of a blur.”

With swimming set to run from Aug. 6-13 in Rio, Meili is considered a medal favorite in the 100-meter breaststroke.

American Lilly King, defending world champion Yulia Efimova of Russia and defending Olympic champion Ruta Meilutyte of Lithuania own the top three times in the world in the event since January, with Meili fourth.

Regardless, NBC television analyst Rowdy Gaines said Meili’s consistency since last summer leads him to believe that she could win a medal, perhaps even gold.

“She’ll be in the hunt, no doubt,” Gaines said in a telephone interview.

He predicted that a bronze medal-winning, time in the 100 breast will fall in the 1-minute, 5-second range, pointing out that Meili has already established a personal record of 1:05.64, set a year ago at the Pan American Games.

“She doesn’t really have to improve that dramatically [to medal],” Gaines said. “It’s not like she’s going to have to do another [one-]second drop from her best time. I really believe 1:05 low is going to win a medal.

“So, she’s got a chance. If she improves on what she did last year, she’s got a shot at gold. I think 1:04 high wins the gold.”

Meili, a third-year professional athlete under coach Dave Marsh at SwimMAC Carolina, didn’t seem fazed by learning that she had been projected as one of the favorites by Gaines, a former Olympic swimmer.

“I think if you had told 8-year-old me that [I could win an Olympic medal], I would have been really surprised,” Meili said. “But I think since I made the move to Charlotte [to train under Marsh], this has really been the goal, and the track, and sort of the expectation that my coach has put on me.”

“You know, we work really hard ... to [get] into a position where a gold medal is in the realm of possibility,” she said. “It’s a huge dream. It’s really cool. But I would say no, it’s not really a huge surprise to hear that I’ve been talked about.”

Actually, Meili could be in position to win a couple of medals, if everything works out. It’s possible that she also could swim on the USA’s 400 medley relay, at least in the preliminary round.

“The expectation is to represent our country. We’ll and go out and show people that the USA is great at swimming,” she said. “Our predecessors have shown that. It’s our time to continue to show that. So I think the expectation is a medal ... That’s the plan.”

Meili started competing as an 8-year-old for the Bedford Swim Team.

Shut out of winning honors in her first meet, she bounced back to win a purple ribbon in her second try.

“For sixth or fifth place,” she said, smiling.

Meili said she isn’t feeling too much pressure leading into her Olympic debut.

“I think before [the U.S. Trials] is when I had most of my sleepless nights, most of my worries,” she said. “Because, the United States is so good at swimming, that I very well could have gone into that meet and swam my best time ever, my perfect race, and not made this team ... I mean, Trials is a very stressful experience.”

Meili entered the Trials in Omaha last month as the favorite to win the 100 breast. She didn’t win, but she did clinch a berth on the team with a second-place finish.

King, a 19-year-old coming off her freshman year at Indiana, placed first in 1:05.20, the top time in the world this year.

Meili, who rallied into the lead briefly during the second half of the race, covered the distance in 1:06.07.

While Meili entered the Trials with momentum coming off last year’s gold-medal performances at the Pan Am Games and U.S. Summer Nationals, she has been largely an under-the-radar talent for most of her career.

After high school, she didn’t get a scholarship offer from either of the state’s top two swimming programs, Texas or Texas A&M.

Following her junior year in college, Meili had moved up into the top 20 in the U.S. rankings before breaking her hand in a training accident.

Three weeks later, she entered the 2012 Olympic Trials anyway and finished a disappointing 48th in the 100 breast preliminaries in 1:11.17 seconds.

Now, four years later, she’s more than five seconds faster and has made the Olympic team. Marsh said he felt relief when Meili made it because “she deserved it so much.”

“What I saw in Katie was a true light,” Marsh said. “She came to me and asked if she could swim on Team Elite and I said, ‘Well, I’ll give you a try,’ but as soon as she came in, she started adding to the team with a kind of a special energy and light.”

Meili said it was easy to excel in the program.

“You’re training in an environment where everybody expects greatness all the time,” she said. “Nothing less than exceptional is acceptable.”

This story was originally published July 20, 2016 at 6:28 PM with the headline "Swimmer Katie Meili wants to make the most of her first Olympics."