‘An aggressive, contact sport.’ Kentuckian to make Olympic debut in open-water swimming.

When Walton, Kentucky, native Mariah Denigan sat down at the age of 16 across from the swim coaches at Indiana University, she had one question of paramount importance, and their answer, ultimately, led to her choosing to commit to the Hoosiers.

“When 2024 comes around,” Denigan asked. “Are you guys going to do everything possible to put me on the Olympic team, even if it means putting my NCAA season at risk?”

The answer? Absolutely.

Now 21 years old, with two years of college remaining and about a week from the 2024 Summer Olympics, Denigan can confidently say that she’s managed to strike a balance between contributing to the Hoosiers’ success and earning a spot on Team USA’s roster in Paris.

Denigan qualified for the women’s marathon, a 10-kilometer open-water race, back in February with a sixth-place finish (1:57:31:10) at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Qatar, weeks before a trio of top-five finishes — including a third-place finish in the 1,650-yard freestyle — helped Indiana to its first Big Ten Conference championship since 2019.

Denigan also earned All-America honors at the NCAA Championships in March with a seventh-place finish in the 1,650-yard freestyle (15:55.41) as the Hoosiers tied their program-high-tying seventh-place finish in the team standings.

A sports marketing and management major also pursuing minors in business and leadership and coaching, Denigan is one of 11 Indiana swimmers set to compete in Paris. Men’s and women’s associate head coach Cory Chitwood (open water, United States) and women’s head coach Ray Looze (swimming, Lithuania) will also travel to Paris to serve as assistant coaches at the Games.

“We have such an Olympic-minded coaching staff that they were willing to sacrifice NCAA for me in order to make the Olympic team,” Denigan said. “And it ended up working out both ways; I had a great NCAA season and I qualified for the Olympics.”

Built for endurance

For those unacquainted with the Olympic marathon — which was added as an official event in 2008 for the Beijing Games — the 10k race is swam in open water. No lanes, outdoors. In making her Olympic debut, Denigan becomes the first Hoosier in history to qualify for an open-water swimming event.

“Obviously, it takes a lot longer,” Denigan said. “But the main difference is that, in pool swimming, you have a lane. And even when you race, no one else is in your space and it’s just you and your lane, and you don’t have to react to other swimmers. Whereas in open-water swimming, you’re forced to swim next to people at some point.”

And, because the race is open to the elements, flexibility becomes crucial to one’s success. Weather can drastically affect water conditions; the course could appear calm and flat the day before a race, but confront swimmers with wind-induced waves when it’s time to jump in the water.

“It’s just one of those things where you have to go with the flow and realize that everyone around you is dealing with the same conditions,” Denigan said. “It’s just a matter of who’s dealing with it better. And a lot of it is having to keep your emotions steady as people are beating up on you because it is an aggressive, contact sport.”

If that sounds intense, it’s because it is. So much so that the practice of calming down and “locking in” — a necessary part of every race, Denigan said — is positively affecting how she approaches her day-to-day life.

“It’s funny because I go with the flow when it comes to open-water swimming,” Denigan said. “But in my everyday life, I like to be able to control the controllables. But I think I’ve learned — and open-water swimming is teaching me — to be more flexible in my everyday life, as well.”

Swimming and schooling

Denigan began open-water swimming more than a decade ago at the age of 10, back when the longest race distance was just 1 kilometer. She won the first open-water race in which she ever competed, and fell in love with it immediately. A graduate of Lakeside Swim Club in Louisville, Denigan was a member of the Northern Kentucky Clippers in Erlanger until the age of 16. With the Clippers, open-water swimming was simply a change of venue — Williamstown Lake — and pace in the summer.

“They would take us out, all the 9- and 10-year-olds,” Denigan said. “And let us tube after we finished the lake swim for practice. It was always just fun to be in a different environment than you’re used to. And then I realized that I was good at it, so I continued on with it.”

As time went on, Denigan was drawn to the distance events. Not only was she better at swimming longer distances, but she enjoyed those races more.

“The distance event for a 9- and 10-year old is a 200 freestyle, and I was always better at the 200 freestyle than I was at the other events,” Denigan said. “And then when I turned 11, I did my first 500, and then that became my event. And then I did my first mile when I was 12, and I just kept getting better and better the longer I went.”

It was at that point that Denigan and her coaches realized that her endurance and energy system was better suited to distance swimming. From there, coaches began building her practices around that idea in hopes that she would continue to not only improve, but garner national attention.

“I think the first time I really realized I had a future in the sport was when I was maybe 9 years old,” Denigan said. “And I started climbing up the rankings. When I was 9, I think I was ranked 10th in the U.S. for a couple of my events. And so that’s when I started to realize, I was like, ‘OK, I really have a future in this sport.’ And I started to push for number one, and I think I reached my first number one in an event the next year when I was 10.”

By ninth grade, Denigan was set to attend Ryle High School in Union. She was traveling for swimming constantly and, after missing the first 20 days of school “right off the bat,” she was told the school couldn’t accommodate her demanding athletic schedule.

She soon switched to online classes through Kentucky’s Barren Academy of Virtual and Expanded Learning (BAVEL).

“It was very, very helpful,” Denigan said of the change.

After moving from the Northern Kentucky Clippers to Lakeside Swim Club at 16, Denigan competed in only one open-water race — a 7.5k race at Junior Nationals — and largely took a break from open-water swimming for the back half of her high school career to focus on distance events in the pool. She returned to open-water swimming her freshman year of college.

Olympic readiness

At Indiana, the open-water swimmers practice on Lake Lemon in Southern Indiana . The content of the workouts varies depending on the specific emphasis, but Denigan gave an example of a typical practice.

“It’ll just be like five, 20-minute swims,” Denigan said. “And each one gets faster, or he’ll give us a signal of (when we’re) halfway, and the second half is faster than the first half. It’s all dependent upon what the focus is for the day.”

A daunting idea for most, but quintessential if one were aiming to reach the podium on the world’s biggest summer stage.

Naturally, the training and preparation necessary to go for gold looks a bit different from a typical plan.

Denigan has focused this summer on improving off her 10th-place finish (2:02:07.10) at the World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup in Italy at the end of May. She finished 6.4 seconds behind the race winner, Brazil’s Ana Marcela Cunha.

“I took my experience from that race and kind of put it into, ‘OK, these are the things that I need to work on and need to be better at in order to win a medal and hopefully take gold at Paris,’” Denigan said. “And so we’ve been making little, minor tweaks to what is already there in order to just be better at those weaknesses heading into Paris.”

The “weaknesses” in question? A lot of it, Denigan said, pertains to her front-end speed. By getting out to a better start in races, she can establish herself in the front pack of competitors as opposed to working her way up from behind, which she’s typically used to doing. Drafting is one of the biggest components of the sport, but a great start can make a world of a difference. She’s also putting effort into being able to switch gears more quickly — accessing 50-meter bursts when she needs to navigate herself out of a crowded situation, all while maintaining her composure.

“It’s all about placement,” Denigan said. “Adding into the buoy turns, and making sure I’m getting on the outside or inside of a turn. You kind of have to plan ahead in open water because you know what will happen. It’s pretty predictable around the turn that people are going to clash on you if you’re riding the turn a little bit too close to the buoy, then it’ll be more aggressive for you rather than if you were on the outside.”

Seine controversy

The Paris Olympics might present an additional challenge for Denigan and her fellow open-water swimmers.

Both the marathon and triathlon swimming events are set to take place in the Seine River, a plan which, due to dangerous levels of E. coli present in the river, has drawn significant criticism. On a normal day, it’s illegal to swim in the Seine, but city representatives say efforts are being made to lower bacteria levels to the point where the events could go on without endangering athletes.

The Associated Press reported July 5 that the Paris Olympics organizing committee has alternate locations ready to use in the event the Seine is deemed unsafe. Per the committee, the marathon could be held in the Olympic Nautical Stadium, which is slated to hold canoeing and rowing competitions in Vaires-sur-Marne, France.

The Herald-Leader spoke with Denigan regarding swimming in the Seine prior to the organizers’ publicizing of backup locations. On the call, Denigan stressed the importance of trusting the Team USA doctors’ expertise on the issue, stating that they “aren’t going to ever put us in a compromising situation.” She also expressed her hope for readily available backup options, but noted — “I think that it is too big of an event for there to not be a Plan B if something were not to be quite right on the day of the race.”

On July 16, the Associated Press reported that doubts remain about whether or not the Seine can remain consistently clean enough — with significant rainfall causing an increase in bacteria levels — to host the events as planned.

A dream come true

Though Denigan’s 2024 has included Big Ten and NCAA Championships, and international championships that have pit her against the best of the best, she’s reached a point in her career where she’s more comfortable and confident than ever. Still wanting to “control the controllables,” she’s embraced an effective routine.

“I do get nervous the night before,” Denigan said. “And what I usually do is I write down my nervous thoughts, and I just combat them with the truth. And just realize that I’ve worked really hard to train for these races, and then I’m ready to race. So writing out those thoughts kind of just puts me to sleep at night, and I wake up ready to go.”

When the time comes to wind down the night before competing in Paris, she’ll embrace an especially powerful truth — regardless of the outcome, she’s already achieved something she’s been picturing since she first started swimming. Becoming an Olympian, Denigan said, is a dream come true. Paris is just the next chapter in her relationship to the sport that’s given her so much.

“I still love the sport so much,” Denigan said. “I think that it’s just a very rewarding sport, and it gives you a lot of life lessons. So I just remind myself that, if I still have the same love for the sport today that I did when I was 7 years old, then it will all work out in the end. I just love being able to train around my friends and push my body to new limits just to see what I can accomplish. So it is a very tough — mentally and physically — sport, but it’s just so rewarding. And I love the feeling of finishing a race and accomplishing a new goal that I have set for myself. And that’s what keeps me going.”

Women’s marathon

What: 10-kilometer open-water swim at the 2024 Summer Olympics

Where: Seine River in Paris, France

When: Thursday, Aug. 8 at 1:30 p.m. EDT (7:30 a.m. in Paris)

How to watch: NBC-TV might show highlights from the race, but watching live will require streaming online, either on Peacock or NBCOlympics.com.

From Kentucky to Paris: More than 30 Olympic Games athletes have ties to Bluegrass State