For swimmers racing for a faster time, a split second could feel like minutes, and a few seconds like an eternity.
So it’s understandable that Savannah’s Gaby Van Brunt was anxious for confirmation that she had qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 100-meter butterfly by 18/100ths of a second.
She had touched the wall first to win her race, hitting the touch pad “pretty hard for it to register.”
“It’s usually just slamming your fingers into the pad,” she said. “I used to have acrylic (fingernails). There’s been a couple of times I’ve hit the wall and broken a nail.”
No broken nails but fingers crossed as Van Brunt looked up at the scoreboard to see that she had won the women’s finals at the International Swim Coaches Association International Senior Cup on March 24 in St. Petersburg, Fla.
The trials cut time is 1:00.19. She saw 1:00.01 on the board.
“I was trying to wait for the announcer to announce it. I knew that he would. But it felt like he was taking forever,” said Van Brunt, a senior at St. Andrew’s School who has signed to swim at the University of Alabama.
Van Brunt, who turns 18 in October, will be in Indianapolis in June 2024 for the Olympic Trials. The 2024 Summer Games are in Paris.
“She swam a really brilliant race,” said Bill Forrester, longtime coach of the Georgia Coastal Aquatic Team. “It was fun to watch. She set it up, swam it the way she wanted to swim it, and it turned out really well for her.”
Forrester said Van Brunt has a combination of natural talent and dedication to training to create an elite skill level.
“She’s got really lofty goals that she goes after every day, so when she gets to the meet, she’s got a lot of confidence,” said Forrester, a 1976 Olympic bronze medalist and three-time world champion. “Part of it is confidence and the other part is sheer determination. That mental capacity to step up there when all the chips are laid out and everybody’s ready to race. She’s willing to put everything out there.”
Van Brunt also won the 100 backstroke in her division in 1:02.50, with the trials cut time less than 1 second faster at 1:01.89.
“That’s a good bit to chip away at,” said Van Brunt, who also competes in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle events. “I think those (cut times) are more distant, but I’ll keep my eye out for them.”
Her best stroke is the butterfly, which is also her favorite because it’s regarded as the most challenging. At age 13, she qualified for the trials in the 100 fly. The Omaha meet was delayed by a year along with the Tokyo Games to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then at age 15, she placed fifth in her preliminary round (1:01.90) and didn’t advance to the finals.
“I didn’t do my best physically, but I think I took a lot more away from it mentally,” Van Brunt said. “I think I was just very much in my head about the whole race. It’s scary. It’s one of the fastest meets in the world. I think coming out and now going forward, it’s like, ‘Hey, other people are here in this meet; it’s not just you.’ Other people are feeling the pressure as well. I think just knowing that, if I did it at 14 years old, I can do it at 18 years old.”
