In “13-Year-Old Blazes a Lane in Swimming’s Olympic Pool,” Lia Neal is profiled as is quite possibly on her way to the Olympics in August. In January, in her last competition in a 50-meter pool before turning 13 on Feb. 13, Neal swam the 100-meter freestyle in 56.87 seconds - which was 0.32 seconds better than the cutoff to compete in the United States Olympic trials from June 29 to July 6 in Omaha”:
“… Neal stands out, anyway, because of her deft strokes and her dark skin. The youngest child of an African-American father and an Asian mother, she has been compared to another biracial prodigy who blossomed in a mostly white sport. The connection to Tiger Woods is perhaps inevitable, but Neal prefers being mentioned in the same breath as Cynthia Woodhead, a swimmer in the 1970s who, like Neal, qualified for the Olympic trials in the freestyle as a 12-year-old.”
Damn, 13 years old, and Neal is possibly going to be an Olympian? I think when I was 13 years old, I was barely able to do a couple of lapse in the pool without getting out of breath!
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Efren wrote:
Wow…that’s incredible. I can probably do 100m free in 1:30-1:40, but then again I am an old fart.
I hope she’s able to qualify, and hope she doesn’t burn out. It’s so rare to see swimmers of color in the US on an Olympic level, and it looks like she’d be able to go even faster.
Posted on 11-Mar-08 at 11:50 am | Permalink