Avon’s Kennedy has eye on U.S. Olympic team in Rio for 2016

Avon’s Madison Kennedy

AVON — In the final hours of the 2012 Olympic Games in London, American swim coach David Marsh found his thoughts drifting back across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States. He had just watched the finals of the women’s 50-meter freestyle and saw the gold and bronze medals go to a pair of swimmers from the Netherlands. The top American was Jessica Hardy in seventh place.

Marsh took out his phone and sent a brief text to Avon’s Madison Kennedy. “The U.S. needs a sprinter,” he sent.

It didn’t take long for the response. “I’m up for it,” Kennedy replied. “Let’s go.”

Only four weeks earlier, Kennedy, who graduated from Avon High in 2005, was tantalizingly close to earning a spot on the U.S. Olympic swim team. At the Olympic trials, she competed in the 50 meter and 100 meter freestyle races. In both events, she swam three times. Twice, she set new personal best times.

But it wasn’t good enough to make the U.S. team. In the 50 meters, Kennedy finished fifth in 25.10 seconds, less than 0.60 of a second behind the winner Jessica Hardy and 0.35 of a second behind Kara Lynn Joyce who finished second and took the final spot on the team.

In the 100 meters, Kennedy led the race after 50 meters but couldn’t keep up the pace and finished eighth, only 0.87 of a second behind Hardy, who swam a personal-best time of 53.96. The top six finishers earned a spot on the team and Natalie Coughlin earned a spot on her third Olympic surging to a sixth place finish, just 0.39 of a second ahead of Kennedy.

Kennedy, 24, had three goals at the U.S. Olympic trials – make the finals in both events, swim a personal-best time and earn a trip to London.

“That one didn’t work out. I was close,” she said a few weeks later visiting her parents and sister on a splendid summer evening in Avon. “It’s not that you accept or settle but I’m happy with what I did. But of course, you’re bummed out. If not, then why are you there? If you don’t have a goal you are reaching for then there is no point.”

She came away from the Olympic trials with a new goal – a berth on the U.S. swim team in 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“She is aware that has an opportunity,” said Marsh, an assistant coach on three U.S. Olympic teams and the head coach of SwimMAC in North Carolina, the club that Kennedy joined last November. “Right now, she has the talent. I wouldn’t be surprised if she emerges soon as one of the best sprinters in the U.S.”

Kennedy has been a member of the U.S. National team for the past two seasons in the 50 free after finishing second in that event at the 2011 and 2010 U.S. national championship meets. She won a bronze medal in the 50 free at the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, last October and was part of the United States’ gold medal 400 freestyle relay team.

For some swimmers, another four years of training would be unthinkable. Not for Kennedy. While she has been swimming since the age of 4, she played soccer and lacrosse growing up in Avon. She rode horses with her two sisters, Hannah and Jessica. She didn’t begin to see significant drops in her swim times until she went to college – two years at Rutgers before transferring to the University of California in Berkeley where she graduated in 2010.

“I didn’t swim as much as my peers but that is also why at 24, they’re ready to get on with their life and I’m not,” Kennedy said.

She was also fortunate to have several coaches here in Connecticut that helped her refine her technique when she was younger. Kennedy takes longer strokes than most of the sprinters she competes against. “If you count her strokes down the pool, they are significantly less than all of her competition,” said Eric Lane, a strength coach at SwimMAC and Kennedy’s long-time boyfriend. “In terms of longevity, it’s a great advantage.”

Kennedy has a sharp focus when she is in the pool.

“She has a racing tenacity,” Marsh said. “She comes across as this easy-going, happy-go-lucky girl. But when push comes to shove, she is real tough. She is dialed in. She knows how to switch it on.”

Kennedy added, “I’ve always had a sprinter’s mentality. I’ve always liked going fast.” She paused and smiled, “I don’t understand why you strategize and have a race plan.”

Hard work doesn’t faze Kennedy, either. She will swim 6,000 meters/yards per day six days a week, four hours a day. “She enjoys the process of pushing herself to do palates, to do the weightlifting,” Marsh said.

As a youngster, Kennedy and her sisters Jessica and Hannah mucked stalls cleaning up after the family’s horses. They fed hay to the horses, split wood and weeded the garden. “It gave me the sense that if you want things to look nice or things to go your way, you have to work for it,” she said.

There were three requirements for Kennedy to join SwimMAC and its Team Elite – an ambition to be an Olympic-caliber swimmer, make the group better and inspire young people. A majority of SwimMAC is young swimmers under the age of 18.

Kennedy and Olympian Aaron Peirsall spent two weeks in August serving as mentors from the U.S. National team to young American swimmers competing in the Junior Pan Pacific championship meet in Hawaii.

This fall, Kennedy will get back to work and there will be plenty of opportunities to compete against world-caliber competition.

In the U.S., there are the winter and summer national championship meets each year along with a Grand Prix series of events that draws international competition. In 2013, the world championships will be held in Barcelona, Spain. In 2014, the Pan-Pacific meet with countries whose borders touch the Pacific Ocean will be held followed by the world championships and Pan-American Games in 2015.

She wants to remain on the national team, which means remaining as one of the top six swimmers in her respective events. Marsh thinks Kennedy has the potential to set an American record in the 50 free. And she would like to get some sponsorship to supplement her training.

Kennedy is heeding advice from her parents, Jim and Jo. “They tell me to do this until I don’t want to do it anymore because not many people get this opportunity,” Kennedy said. “A lot of people ask me when I’m going to get a job.”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I have a job,” she said. “I’ll never have this body and this ability (again).”

You can follow Madison’s at her Twitter page @madisonjkennedy