Dec. 1, 2014
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Check off another amazing life experience for University of Notre Dame standout women’s swimmer Emma Reaney, as the senior is in Doha, Qatar this week for the 12th annual FINA Short Course World Championships (Dec. 3-7).
Reaney, who is set to swim the 50-, 100- and 200-meter breaststroke events, is competing for the United States for the first time in her career. A two-time U.S. National Team Member, Reaney qualified for the international meet in large part due to her performance at the Phillips 66 National Championships in August.
“I have no idea,” said Reaney on what it will feel like to wear Team USA gear for the first time. “I’ve heard it’s the best feeling in the world. Getting to swim with the top swimmers in our country and represent Team USA, which is something every young swimmer dreams of doing, is going to be awesome.”
Reaney left Friday, Nov. 28 for Qatar via Washington D.C. and Frankfurt, Germany, and will get her championships started early on day one (Dec. 3) with the 50-meter breast. Day three (Dec. 5) will feature the 100-meter breast, while day five (Dec. 7) will see the Lawrence, Kansas native compete in the 200-meter breast.
Prelims are slated for 9:30 a.m. AST (Arabia Standard Time), which is 1:30 a.m. EST, while finals are slated for 6 p.m. AST or 10 a.m. EST.
The short course championships are a combination of the collegiate season’s short course approach with the international use of meters, thus the competitors will swim in a 25-meter pool. Known for her impressive turns, Reaney will get the benefit of one turn in the 50, three for the 100 and seven for the 200 since it’s a short course event, compared to no turns, one and three if it was a long-course competition.
“If you compare my long course and short course times, I’m much better at short course, even compared to other collegiate swimmers,” said Reaney. “I’m really excited that I’ll be able to use all my pullouts and still have it be meters. So we will see how it goes once I get there and have to adjust stroke counts and such.”
Even though she has known for over a month about the invitation to compete at short course worlds, Reaney remembers that moment like it was yesterday.
“I was walking out of practice with my teammates and checking my email and I think I sort of had a freak out and started screaming,” the design major said. “My teammates asked what was wrong and I said ‘I just got invited to short course worlds.’ I think I was jumping around and probably being really annoying.
“It hasn’t really set in. It probably won’t until I get there and I’m on deck in all of my USA gear. I think it was more meaningful to me because I missed qualifying for the Pan Pac team (Pan Pacific Championships) by such a small margin. This meet is kind of like my comeback from that.”
One of the highlights of the upcoming meet for Reaney is a reunion of sorts with her SwimMAC Carolina teammates from this past summer. In addition to Tyler Clary, Ryan Lochte and coach David Marsh on the men’s side, Reaney will also get to swim with Cammile Adams, Kathleen Baker, Madison Kennedy and Kate Mills on the women’s side.
“That’s one of the main things that I’m looking forward to with this meet,” said Reaney. “I’m really missing everyone that I trained with this summer, and even though they won’t all be there, it’s very comforting to have a pretty good majority of the team be people that I’m comfortable with for my first international meet because they can guide me along since most of them have done this before. That way I can go into the meet and be myself since they already know me.”
Follow @NDwSwimming and @chloreaney on Twitter for meet updates throughout the competition.
–Russell Dorn, Assistant Media Relations Director
–ND–