Closing fast: Bluffton swimmer set to take Olympic Trials shot

Every eighth grader has one — that pre-high school sitdown with a parent and counselor to assess talents and map out a path to graduation and beyond.

So, Andrew Faciszewski, what career path do you think you’d like to pursue?

“I’m going to be an Olympic athlete,” came the reply.

Hey, doesn’t any budding teenage athlete dream of reaching the top of his or her chosen sport? This one, though, came with a caveat — the McCracken Middle School student had been swimming competitively for less than a year.

“I was surprised,” recalled his mother, Nan Faciszewski. “It’s not like he’d been swimming for years. I’m thinking, ‘OK, let’s be real here.’ I’m sitting there wondering where he came up with that. But he did, and I’m glad.”

Seven years later, ambition sits one step from reality as Faciszewski prepares to compete at this week’s U.S. Olympic Trials in Omaha, Neb. His specialty, the 1,500-meter freestyle, is one of the last on the program with heats next Saturday.

It’s still a pretty long step — 101 swimmers are entered in the Olympics’ longest race, with just two spots available for Rio de Janeiro. It doesn’t take a math whiz to understand those odds.

“It’s the most competitive meet in the world,” Faciszewski said from Colorado Springs, Colo., where he just completed his third year at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

“But it’s just a great opportunity to go out and race. I’m going to have fun with it. I started in eighth grade, and ever since then it’s been a goal of mine. It’s cool to finally see it come together.”

Faciszewski was among the final batch of swimmers to get into the Trials, meeting the qualifying standard earlier this month at a small meet in Thornton, Colo.

Though he’s the reigning Western Athletic Conference champion in the 1,650-yard freestyle, he needed to post a time at the Olympic distance. It wasn’t easy to find a meet that included the 1,500 meters and meshed with his schedule as an Air Force cadet.

Through 1,200 meters, Faciszewski’s pace was hovering right near the cut line.

“It really could have gone either way,” Air Force coach Rob Clayton recalled. “Then he just blistered the last 100 and made it happen.”

Clayton has seen that finishing kick plenty of times.

“He can do some unbelievable things at the end of a race,” the coach said.

He pointed to Faciszewski’s effort in the 400 individual medley on the opening night of the conference meet in March. Trailing WAC record-holder Iegor Lytvenok by more than two-tenths of a second after three legs, he chased down the Ukranian to finish nearly six-tenths ahead.

Though it was only for third place, the points proved valuable as Air Force won its first conference swimming title.

“That swim really got the whole team going,” Clayton said. “He’s motivational like that. We can count on him to give everything he has.”

There’s really no other approach to be successful in the mile, be it measured at 1,500 meters or 1,650 yards. Even at world-class levels, it requires about 15 minutes of continuous swimming at a constant pace.

“They have to be somebody that really likes pain,” said Eric Kemeny, Faciszewski’s coach on the FINS Swim Team and at Bluffton High. “They’ve got to be able to push themselves through that point where you either back down or continue.”

It’s a distance where Faciszewski, who didn’t start competing until his family moved to the Lowcountry from Texas, has settled in nicely. At Bluffton High, he was twice a state runner-up at 500 yards, the longest distance offered at the state meet.

Though both swimmers who outtouched Faciszewski at states are swimming in college, neither made the Olympic Trials lineup.

“I just know there were a lot of guys that were faster than him in high school that Andrew has gone right by,” Clayton said. “He’s passionate about reaching the highest level he can reach.”

Connor Yeager, the American recordholder in the 1,500, is favored for one of the two Rio berths, with the other likely to come down to Jordan Wilimovsky or Michael McBroom. For Faciszewski, though, this week might be more of an appetizer with an eye on the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

The Air Force, along with the Army, offers a World Class Athlete Program that allows service members two years to train exclusively toward the Olympics if they meet sport-specific standards. It’s an option that Faciszewski is keeping open.

“That would actually be a better shot for me making the team,” said Faciszewski, a mechnical engineering major with an eye on becoming a pilot.

“As a cadet, I’ve got to put in the daily routine. It’s not the easiest thing to juggle all this stuff. But in the WCAP program, that’s your job. You put aside whatever you were doing and train to represent the U.S. on a world level.”

Clayton, now beginning his 19th year as Air Force coach, said Faciszewski “absolutely” could meet the criteria required by the WCAP program.

“It’s a big deal for the Air Force to be represented at the Olympic Trials, in any sport,” he said.

This week, though, will be more about personal goals. Faciszewski will consider the week a success if he can lower that qualifying time of 15:46.83, no matter where it lands him among those 101 competitors.

“That would be a really cool, really significant milestone for me,” he said.

Clayton said: “It’s a great opportunity for him. ... It’s an incredible longshot, but just to get to our Olympic Trials sets you apart from 99 percent of the swimmers out there.”

This story was originally published June 25, 2016 at 3:20 PM with the headline "Closing fast: Bluffton swimmer set to take Olympic Trials shot."