Albert Lea Swimmer Horejsi Sets Nat'l Record
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- When Lindsey Horejsi jumped in the pool Thursday afternoon, racing for a record was part of the plan.
"Not even a question, yeah," the senior swimmer from Albert Lea said. "I just kept visualizing at night which splits I had to go out, so I knew I had to go out fast. So I just went for it."
Horejsi's time of 58.56 seconds in the 100-yard breaststroke set a new national record. No female high school swimmer had ever done it faster.
"It was just an emotional rush," she said. "You're happy and then you're crying, and then all the sudden you look at your team and they're crying, it's super-emotional."
Thursday was just the prelims, so she had the chance to break her own record in Friday's finals. And she very nearly did, coming a tenth of a second short. It would have broken the national record, if she had not done it just the day before.
"Lindsey has got a special gift," Albert Lea coach Jon Schmitz said. "And we knew that from seventh grade."
And when you set a national record, expectations get even bigger. Things like the Olympics start looking more and more realistic.
Horejsi will compete at the U.S. Olympic trials next summer in Omaha in the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke.
"I'm gonna try for Rio in 2016 and we'll see what happens," she said. "I mean, it's a long shot obviously, because there's a lot of good breaststrokers out of there, but if not 2016, for sure 2020."