Former Olympian will compete in Beaufort River race. His kids might be faster
Carlton Bruner of Cat Island was once a world-class distance swimmer who represented the United States in the 1996 Olympics.
But he could lose to a 16-year-old in the 15th Annual Beaufort River Swim Saturday. That would be his daughter, Skylar, a sophomore at Hilton Head High School, who won the race in 2020.
“She’s going to kill me,” Bruner predicts.
He’ll also have stiff competition from an 18-year-old graduating senior at Hilton Head High. That would be his son, Cohen, who won it in 2019. Cohen will be swimming for the U.S. Naval Academy later this year.
The family of elite Beaufort County swimmers will have plenty of tough competition from outside the inner circle, too.
As of mid-week, some 200 swimmers and runners had registered to compete this weekend in races that attract top distance swimmers and even triathletes looking for practice in the swimming and running legs of their sport.
The event has been expanded this year to include additional running and swimming races, which begin on Friday, but the marquee event remains Saturday’s 3.2-mile swim from Sands Beach in Port Royal to the Beaufort marina.
That race begins at 7:30 a.m.
Event proceeds benefit the YMCA Learn To Swim Program.
“As an athlete, I think it’s really neat we have someone of that caliber living here locally,” Denice Fanning of the Beaufort-Jasper YMCA of the Lowcountry and event director, said of Bruner.
Bruner was top distance swimmer
Bruner was considered one of the 10 best 800-meter and 1500-meter freestyle swimmers in the world from 1992 to 1996.
The ‘96 Olympics were held in Bruner’s hometown of Atlanta, and he earned a spot on the U.S. swim team in the 1,500-meter freestyle, the longest event in a pool.
His trial time, which earned him a spot on the team, was 15:12, 2 seconds off his best time.
At the Olympics, he finished a disappointing 12th.
“Sometimes you don’t have a very good swim,” Bruner said.
Today, the Olympics includes an open water race, the 10K. It didn’t in 1996 when Bruner was still racing competitively.
“Brutal would be a good way to describe it,” Bruner said of the event.
Open water races are difficult because, Bruner says simply, “you are not in a pool,” and a totally different skill set is required to compete.
In a pool, lanes keep swimmers apart, and swimmers can see the bottom of the pool, which helps them navigate.
In open water, swimmers have to deal with tides and currents — and other swimmers bumping into them, Bruner said, “like a NASCAR race.”
Swimming the shortest distance possible allowed on the course is critical.
That’s why, come Saturday, navigation skills and smarts will be just as important as speed, Bruner said.
Bruner’s daughter, Skylar, loves swimming in open water and beat her 49-year-old dad in the Death Valley Open Water Swim at Clemson June 5. Skylar won the girl’s event with a time that was seven minutes faster than Bruner’s.
Bruner is a bit heavier than his Olympic-era swim weight of 125 pounds. At 5 feet, 8 inches, Bruner was small for a competitive swimmer. Many stand over 6 feet and weigh as much as 200 pounds.
Bruner’s daughter is taller than he is. His son is over 6 feet tall.
But as he developed into an Olympic-level swimmer, Bruner said his slight build helped with his endurance. It didn’t hurt that he had been in the water since he was 18 months old, when his parents arranged swimming lessons in a lake.
“I’ve always been around water ever since,” says Bruner, who said he’s more comfortable there than on land.
Today, Bruner lives on Cat Island and owns an Interstate Batteries franchise in Bluffton.
His kids live in Hilton Head with their mother, Heather.
The couple moved to the area in 2008.
They believed in the attributes that sports can teach young people, so they had Skylar and Cohen, when they were younger, try out a variety.
They gravitated toward swimming.
It’s not difficult to figure out why. Heather was a collegiate swimmer, and Bruner was an All American for the University of Florida before the Olympics.
Skylar “is more like I was, a distance swimmer,” Bruner says, whereas Cohen excels at sprints and middle distances.
Bruner has won the Beaufort race several times but hasn’t swum the race in eight years.
With his kids getting older, and “flapping their mouths” about beating Dad, Bruner decided to race this year. He said he’s always told his son and daughter that they would never beat him, no matter how fast they got.
But more important to him than winning or losing is that both of his kids love the sport.
And, he added, “I can’t say how much the sport has given me over the years.”
This story was originally published June 10, 2021 at 12:00 AM.
