Groves Graduate to Swim in Olympic Trials Tuesday

Most graduating seniors from are spending the summer working or preparing for college in the fall.

Groves graduate Annie Lazor has been preparing for the Olympic swimming trials.

Lazor will be swimming in Omaha, NE today, looking to make it onto the USA Swimming Olympic team. The 17-year-old will be swimming the 100M and 200M breaststroke during the trials, with heats scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday.

Teen has history of swimming locally, around the world

For the Ohio State-bound Lazor, trying out for the Olympics has been a long and tumultuous journey. Lazor swam her qualifying times — 1:12.19 in the 100M and 2:35.99  in the 200M — when she was only 15.

Lazor began swimming, however, when she was 5 with lessons at the Woodside Athletic Club in Beverly Hills. At 8, she went competitive, joining the Birmingham and Bloomfield-based Atlantis Swim Club, where she would continue to swim and eventually coach every summer.

Upon entering Groves High Scool, Lazor dropped her soccer career and began swimming full time. Since then, she’s been practicing three to four times a week, working out and traveling around the world with US Junior National swim team.

While all her efforts are made at improving her lap times and reaching the next level, Lazor admitted the work isn’t easy.

“There are aspects that I like, and aspects that I haven’t liked,” Lazor admitted. “Sometimes I ask, ‘How much better am I really going to get at this (early-morning) practice because I really want to sleep in right now.’”

Though she's swam as far away as Japan with the US Junior Natioanl team, Lazor has been making plenty of waves in Michigan in recent years. In 2010, , setting a state record for the 100-yard breaststroke in the process.

In 2011, , beating the second-place swimmer by nearly two seconds.

Coach says Lazor has improved recently, needs to drop more time to reach Olympics

However, according to her coach at Atlantis, Vince Gallant, Lazor is one of the athletes he wishes he could have 100 of.

“She’s a very good student of the sport,” Gallant, who’s been coaching swimming for 34 years, said. “She knows her strengths and weaknesses. She knows her main competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. Since I’ve been with her in January, she’s the only person who’s done everything I’ve asked her to do.”

Gallant has been working with Lazor since January, when he was hired to coach full time at Atlantis. However, he said he’s been watching Lazor swim since she was 11 years old.

When it comes to making it into the Olympics, Gallant said Lazor has her work cut out for her. According to Gallant, swimmers who want to make it to the Olymipcs have to plan on breaking the American record in whatever event they’re swimming.

The Olympic trials are for the best-of-the-best, Gallant said, and Lazor will not only be competing against college-aged athletes but professional swimmers in their 20’s and 30’s as well.

“The Olympic standard is a really high bar and it’s one that requires someone who has some talent and more importantly an incredible work ethics and an ability to prepare over the years,” he said.

Gallant said Lazor has dropped 2.5 seconds off her lap times this spring, but would need to drop 4 more seconds to make it into the top 16. She would need to drop 12 seconds from her best time to break the American record.

“It would be a miracle,” Gallant said. “But it’s not out of the picture … Annie improved her training immensely (in recent months) and she’s been able to train at a higher level in this program.”

Lazor says she proud to be swimming with Olympians

Looking ahead, Lazor will be swimming with the Buckeyes this fall but she’s not sure where her swimming career will take her once she reaches Columbus.

“Sometimes change is a good thing,” Lazor said. “It all depends on how well (I swim) in college.”

Courted by the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Auburn University, Lazor said she chose Ohio State because of the school’s impressive swimming program and the coaches, including head coach Bill Dorenkott and associate head coach Stefanie Williams.

“They take schools and turn them into extraordinary programs,” Lazor said. “When I met them, I felt like I was more than just a name and a time.”

Lazor said she can hardly begin thinking ahead to the 2016 Olympics; just making it to the Olympic trials in 2012 is a big enough achievement, she said.

“I’m already at this meet with all these Olympians,” she said. “It’s just fun to be able to say, ‘Yeah, I raced against an Olympian.’”