Competitive swimming is not a sport of seconds. To swimmers, a second is an eternity.
Too often, athletes' dreams are shattered by tenths or even hundredths of a second.
This past week it happened to a former ASU swimmer trying to make the cut at the Olympic Team Trials in Omaha, Neb.
Nick Brunelli, a 16-time All-American and 2004 graduate of ASU, missed the cut by just .07 seconds in the finals of the 100-meter freestyle on Thursday.
Brunelli trained at ASU's Mona Plummer Aquatic Center with ASU coach Michael Chasson leading up to the trials.
Recent ASU graduate Caitlin Andrew made it to the semi-final round of the 50-meter freestyle event but didn't advance after finishing 16th with a time of 25.57 seconds.
Despite the lack of Sun Devils on the U.S. National Team, Chasson said he expects America to be a major force in the pool for the Beijing Games.
"The men's team will be awesome in China," Chasson wrote in an e-mail. "They could win every event but the 50 and 100 free and 200 breast."
-Alex Espinoza
