Malibu resident Jordan Wilimovsky got his second ticket to the Rio Olympics by placing second in the 1500m free swim Sunday night. Earlier this year he qualified for Rio in the 10k open water swim.
Wilimovsky is the first American Olympian to qualify in both open water & pool swims in the same Olympic Games.
“It’s really, really cool — what I’ve been working toward this year — to represent the United States in two events,” Wilimovsky said after the race.
Going into Sunday night’s final, his personal best time was 14:53.12. On sunday, he swam his new personal best of 14:49.19 — just an edge behind winner Connor Jaeger at 14:47.61. These two leaders were almost neck-and-neck the whole swim and left the other six swimmers in their wake.
“It was a lot of fun … to try & hang with him as long as I could,” Wiliamovsky said when asked what it was like in the swim. “I looked up at 1000 (meters) and saw Connor was pretty close. .. so I must be doing alright.”
Jordan swam his personal best in the 2012 swim trials but it wasn’t enough to make the team. After that attempt, an article in The Malibu Times stated, “Keep your eye on Jordan. He’s going places in the swimming world — probably to the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016.”
Jordan heads to Rio next month.Â