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01/27/2016 11:00 PMCorey Gambardella completed the trip of a lifetime during the weekend of Jan. 16, when he went to the University of Texas to compete in the Arena Pro Swim Series. Corey is a junior at Guilford High School who swims for the Branford-Guilford co-op squad, as well as the Soundview YMCA Stingrays from Branford. He attended the meet in Texas with Stingrays’ coach Wesley Crozier and came back home having qualified for the USA Olympic Trials in the 200-meter butterfly.
“That was one of the best experiences as a swimmer that I’ve had thus far in my career. Being around Olympic athletes from all over the country was amazing,” says Corey. “[Nerves were] a contributing factor, but it was 50/50 between that and knowing I was so close to the Olympic trial cut.”
Corey went to the meet to compete in the 100 and 200 butterfly events. His goal for the 100 was to post a mark of less than 54.79 seconds and he also wanted to go under 2:01.99 in the 200 as those are the times to make the cut for the Olympic Trials.
“I raced in the 100 first and that’s what got me into the spirit of being with all the successful athletes,” says Corey, who timed in with his personal record of 54.97, which was just 0.18 seconds from the cut. “I wasn’t focused on the 100. It wasn’t even on my radar. Getting that close to it, it gave me a lot of confidence going into the 200.”
Then in the 200 butterfly, Corey swam in the B final and completed the event in 2:01.52—recording his best time and securing his spot in the Olympic Trials by less than half a second.
“I went into finals with a good attitude, felt good, and made the cut,” says Corey, who also won the 200 fly at the Senior Championships last summer. “When I finished the race at finals and looked at the board and saw my time was under the cut, it was extremely stress relieving in a sense that all my work up to that point got me success. So that was a really satisfying feeling, knowing all my work and preparation was successful, so it felt really good.”
Coach Crozier felt happy for Corey in terms of how he qualified for the trials, while also gaining national exposure by competing at such an elite meet.
“He’s confident and controlled. He has a good demeanor about him. This meet, he was noticeably nervous and somewhat taken aback by the level of swimmers and level of competition he was to face. Keeping him calm was one of the challenges of this meet. Once you step on deck and see these incredible swimmers—everyone is fast and in shape—it’s a little overwhelming for a 17-year-old from Guilford,” says Crozier. “With stars like Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte, as well as other medalists and world record holders, this meet was incredibly stacked with talent. Being in the B final in the 200 fly, he just missed out swimming in the heat with the big names, but he did warm down with Phelps and had great exposure.”
As you might expect, Corey was extremely excited to be surrounded by the stars of his sport while swimming in the same pool with some Olympic gold medalists.
“This is going to sound weird, but it was almost like being a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert,” says Corey. “You’re kind of like starstruck. You see these guys on TV and at the top of the leaderboard every time you look at the results. Seeing them in person and being around them and a part of their culture was a great experience for me.”
Last winter, Corey won the 100-yard butterfly in 51.86 at the SCC Championship en route to being an All-Conference, All-State, and New Haven Register All-Area performer on behalf of Guilford and is now primed to repeat those feats in his current junior season. The Olympic Trials will then take place in Omaha, Nebraska from June 26 through July 3 and Corey is already looking forward to what that experience might bring.
“Since it is the meet that qualifies you for Olympics, it’s the most competitive meet in USA swimming. It will be fast, but I’m not going there thinking I need to make the Olympics. It’s more for the experience and being around all the talent and being able to see live what people can really do in this sport,” says Corey. “It’s really a sport where you have to put in hours, weeks, months, and years in to get one best time and make one cut. There’s not a lot of reward that comes along with the sport, but that one you do get, it’s really something else and that’s why I do it. You get that feeling that you put all that training and work in for that one specific achievement.”