Maya DiRado Earns Spot On US Olympic Swim Team

Maya DiRado found herself in an unusual position Sunday night at the U.S. Olympic trials at CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Nebraska.

Maya DiRado Earns Spot On US Olympic Swim Team

She cruised over the last 100 meters of the long 400-meter individual medley.

“Thoughts crossed my mind like: This is not real life,” she said. “Like: I’m imagining this. I’m still in my nap or something.”

DiRado ended up winning the 400 IM final and earned a spot in what will be her first and last Olympic Games in Rio di Janeiro. The 23-year-old Californian has declared that, despite the fact swimmers now routinely compete professionally into their late 20s and through several Olympic cycles, she will retire from the sport in order to spend more time with her new husband and to focus on her job at McKinsey & Company, an elite management consulting firm.

“Some people see it as, ‘Oh, you’re swimming so well, so why not keep going?’ ” DiRado said Saturday before the competition began. “But I think part of the reason why I am swimming so well is knowing that I have a hard stop date, and so it’s much easier to be excited about all of this and give it everything I have when I know that this is my last go-through.”

DiRado swam collegiately at Stanford, and this is her third trials, and her winning time of 4:33.73 left 23-year-old Elizabeth Beisel, who qualified for her third Olympic team, more than three seconds behind.

DiRado also seemed to have a good idea of what her final Olympics will be like.

“I’ll be a rookie; I’ll do the rookie skits,” she said. “But at 23, I’m one of the older ones. And [there will be] just a sense of calm, and because this is my last one, I feel like I’ll try to help people appreciate what they’re doing.”

One competitor DiRado didn’t have to beat out for one of the two spots on the team is Bethesda’s Katie Ledecky, who scratched out of the 400 IM, as expected. Ledecky will make her 2016 trials debut Monday in the 400 freestyle, an event in which she holds the world record.

Cassidy Bayer, a 16-year-old from Alexandria who swims for the Nation’s Capital Swim Club, surprised herself by placing fourth overall in Sunday night’s semifinals of the 100-meter butterfly and qualifying for Monday night’s final.

“I wasn’t expecting it,” she said after her time of 58.11 placed her third in her semifinal. Four-time Olympic gold medalist Dana Vollmer, who qualified for her first Games when Bayer was 4, was fastest in 56.90.

Kevin Cordes broke an American record in a semifinal of the 100 breaststroke, posting a time of 58.94, breaking the previous mark held by Eric Shanteau. 

OMAHA, NE – JUNE 26: Maya DiRado of the United States celebrates after finishing first in the final heat for the Women’s 400 Meter Individual Medley during Day One of the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team Swimming Trials at CenturyLink Center on June 26, 2016 in Omaha, Nebraska. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)