OMAHA — Super Mom and Super Dad have had quite a busy week … and it’s only Monday.
Dana Vollmer has already qualified for the Rio Olympics, with her second-place finish in the women’s 100-meter butterfly Monday night at the U.S. Olympic trials here. Super Mom will try to become the first American female swimmer to win a gold medal after giving birth.
Which brings us to Super Dad, the term Vollmer uses for her husband, Andy Grant, who is taking care of their 15-month-old son Arlen all week long while Vollmer focuses on the meet.
“He’s doing great,” Vollmer, 28, said Monday night. “It’s been nice because normally it’s all, ‘Momma, momma,” he just always wants momma because I’m there all day with him. To have him say, ‘Dada’ all the time, I know it’s just melting my husband’s heart. He just loves it.”
Vollmer’s body began its journey from pregnant woman to world-class swimmer 15 months ago, and it hasn’t been an easy one. The training and structure have helped Vollmer get her body back — and put her in position to show her son her dominance in the pool.
In Rio, Vollmer will get a chance to defend her gold medal in the 100 fly. That’s at the very least; she still has more events to compete in this week.
Fifteen months ago, she couldn’t imagine being here, in this shape, in this position. An Olympian, again.
“I feel like I've always had to set really lofty goals ever since I was little, and knowing that I wanted to get back in shape, that was kind of the first goal,” Vollmer said. “I wanted to kind of have control over my body again after being pregnant and it's what I love about this sport is finding the little things, playing around with technique, playing around with the physics in the water and learning more about how we can go fast and how the body works and I missed that in those two years off.
“To come back, it was humbling. I could hardly make it through warm-up, and to kind of have — each practice was getting better, each practice I was learning different things. I felt like my coach, Teri McKeever and I did an awesome job of taking that raw spot that I was at — I hadn't been in the water in two years. Let's really look at changing techniques in a way that can make me faster, improving my relationship with the water, so it's been an amazing 15 months of kind of figuring out how I can be faster.
“Did I think that I would be here swimming faster than I ever have in season? No. I’m stoked that I am.”
Vollmer finished her 100 fly in 57.21 seconds Monday night, behind first-place finisher and first-time Olympian Kelsi Worrell (56.48). While Vollmer wasn’t thrilled with her time — she admitted she expected to go faster here at trials — she knows it doesn’t matter how she qualified for the Rio Games. It just matters that she did it.
“I had no idea how it would go when I started,” Vollmer said. “It’s been an amazing, really, life journey for me. I take things day by day. I try to come into each day with no expectations and improve all the time. I was a little disappointed at the time when I touched, but then you realize time doesn’t matter — I still got second place and I’m going to Rio.
“I know that I have that speed there. I have that ability. I have been putting up times in practice faster than I’ve gone in my life. It didn’t show up here, but in a couple of weeks, I hope that it will.”
PHOTOS: OLYMPIC TRIALS
