Harrison swimmer Matthew Klinge qualifies for US Olympic Trials

WEST LAFAYETTE — Harrison senior swimmer and Ohio State bound Matthew Klinge delivered fans a memorable adieu before replacing his gold and yellow Boilermaker Aquatics colors for Buckeye red in the fall.

Klinge dove into the water at Morgan J. Burke Aquatics Center and added more history to an already thick 2024 résumé.

The 2024 Indiana State Swimmer of the Year and 5-time champion qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 50-yard freestyle during the Boilermaker Aquatics Early Bird Invitational on Saturday morning.

Klinge butchered his previous personal record by setting a new time of 22.59 seconds — .20 seconds faster than the required cut time of 22.79.

The US Olympic Team Trials will be held from June 15-23 at Lucas Oil Stadium. The event will be held at a football field for the first time in history.

""Especially today I was really at peace," Klinge said. "I'm feeling really good. No nerves I just felt peaceful.”

Klinge maintained his calm demeanor even after achieving another step on the road to Olympic qualifying. While making the USA Swimming Team is a long shot as he'll face the best professional and college swimmers in the world, Klinge is finding comfort both in training and during competitions.

"I've been learning to live in the moment and appreciate it while I’m here," Klinge said. I've struggled with that in the past. I'm hopeful to bring this feeling into later meets.”

Klinge's key to winning races has been adopting a meditative mindset while competing and training. The transformation to becoming an even more reserved athlete he said began after reading Zen in the Martial Arts by Joe Hyams after his junior year.

"After my junior swim season I was really stressed," Klinge said. "For years (Hyams) trained under the most well known martial artists. I use a lot of the lessons and strategies used in that book.”

One of the martial artists Hyams trained under was Bruce Lee. As an athlete, Klinge has dug deeper into Lee's philosophies to make him a stronger swimmer.

"Lee was interesting because he had some limitations too," Klinge said. "Bad vision and one of his legs was longer than the other. He would focus on everything he wanted to do. Became an actor. He knew the work he had to put in to get that stuff that he wanted

Klinge's persistence and focus draws him one step closer each day to perhaps one day becoming an Olympian.

Ethan Hanson is the sports reporter for the Journal & Courier in Lafayette. He can be reached atehanson@gannett.com, on Twitter at EthanAHanson and Instagram at ethan_a_hanson.