Paige Downey took a deep breath before she stepped onto the block for her first swim at the 2024 Olympic trials in Indianapolis. It was the 1500 freestyle, a race that's become routine throughout her years of training, but the setting was uncharted territory for her young career. As the starter commanded, "Ladies and gentlemen … take your mark," she shook in anxiety. Downey, a 15-year-old Gilbert resident who attends Chandler's Basha High School, ordered herself not to look into the record crowd. She was riding an equal dose of exhilaration and anxiety about swimming against some of her Olympic heroes in a pool placed inside Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts.
Six weeks before the trials, she and her father had been anxiously counting down the weeks in anticipation of what he called "the biggest event for swimming." Now, she was there at the Olympic trials, where the nation's best swimmers were vying for a trip to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Downey, who was just weeks away from turning 16, is entering her junior year as Arizona's No. 1 ranked recruit and one of the top swimmers for the Gold Medal Swim Club, one of the nation's premier swimming teams. At the trials, Downey competed against some of the best in the world.
"The Olympic trials is a harder meet than the Olympics," Gold Medal Swim Club's head coach Michael Chasson said. "It's very intense. It's nine days long, and you have to hit your peak multiple times during the nine days. Most meets that we go to are like three and a half days, maybe four. So it's a lot tougher to keep sharp over nine days. But that's what you have to do if you're on the Olympic team."
Downey saw other swimmers at the trials that she has idolized, among them the world record holder in the women's long course 100-meter backstroke and 200-meter backstroke Regan Smith, 7-time Olympic gold medalist Caeleb Dressel, and 7-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky.
"It's kind of hard to not get caught up in, you know, like 'I'm swimming against Katie Ledecky,' and it's just such a big thing," Downey said. "You're like, I've looked up to this person since I was, like, six or seven, and now I'm racing against them. But I think just focusing on yourself and your own goals has been a big lesson I've learned because sometimes you tend to, you know, focus on the people swimming in the lane next to you."
Downey hopes to one day join her idols as Olympians, and she's got a good grasp on what it'll take to get there, "If you really want something, you know, you're going to do everything to get it."
Downey's performance in the trials qualified her to be selected for the U.S. swimming national junior team. There, she will compete in the Junior Pan Pacific Championships at the Canberra Australian Institute of Sports in Australia from Aug. 21-24.
Since Downey is mainly a distance swimmer—performing in events such as the 1000 freestyle (40 laps) and the 500 freestyle (20 laps)—she doesn't swim for Basha. High schools typically operate on a 25-yard pool instead of the 50-meter pool generally used for national events.
Her parents wanted her to have the intense training needed for distance events.
"So we decided when she went into high school as a freshman that it would be in her best interest to not participate in high school swim because she wouldn't get the proper training," her mother, Kelly Downey, said.
Downey follows in her mother's footsteps, citing her as her most significant source of inspiration. Her mother swam for Long Island Aquatics and Fairfield University.
"Well, she definitely has surpassed me," Kelly Downey said. "I never made it to the Olympic trials, so it's truly amazing to see her accomplish these milestones, and especially at a young age, there's definitely a lot of excitement, and we're so excited for what she can do in the future."
Downey now has her sights set on the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. And now that Downey is entering her junior season, colleges can contact her to recruit, and they have wasted no time doing so. Chasson said she's gaining interest from "virtually every top program" nationwide. She'll swim in the 2024 Speedo Winter Junior National Championships in December.
"It's unbelievable," Kelly Downey said. "Sometimes we're in shock where we're just amazed by her strength and endurance. It's truly an honor, and it's amazing to watch her growth. And you know, there's definitely highs and lows. There's good days and bad days. There's hard days, there's amazing days. But when you see it all come together, it makes it all worth it."
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