COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. \u2014 With their 12-year-old daughter, Katie, swimming nearby, Shari and Christian Grimes stood on the pool deck talking to Sandpipers of Nevada coach Chris Barber. Christian had just been offered the deputy fire chief job in Logan, Utah, and the family was considering moving there from their home in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
Barber is a good listener with a calm head, Shari says, and the Grimes family trusts him. So she didn\u2019t take his words that day lightly. Barber started by saying that Katie could move anywhere and earn a college swimming scholarship.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m telling you right now,\u201d he continued, \u201cthere is something different about her. And if you leave her here, she will be an Olympian.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shortly after, Ron Aitken, the Sandpipers CEO who coaches the team\u2019s top swimmers, heard what the family was considering. He reached out to make a pact: If they stayed in Nevada, he promised he\u2019d remain with Sandpipers at least until Katie graduated high school.<\/p>\n
The coaches\u2019 responses were telling. Katie was a special talent with more potential than her parents had realized up to that point. So Shari and Christian listened. The family stayed put.<\/p>\n
Five years later, Grimes is one of the most promising swimmers in the U.S. She already made Barber look prophetic, making the Olympics<\/a> as a 15-year-old in 2021, and has since won three silver medals in pool events at the World Aquatics Championships. She\u2019s also a world-class open-water swimmer and has already qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics in the 10-kilometer race after taking bronze at the 2023 world championships, making her the first American athlete to secure a spot in France.<\/p>\n \u201cKnowing that I\u2019m already going to Paris is a little bit comforting, but I still really want to make it in the pool,\u201d said Grimes, now 17. \u201c\u2026 I feel like I still have a lot to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Grimes is never satisfied, her mom says. Shari believes there are times Katie needs to celebrate her accomplishments more than she does. But that unrelenting hunger is perhaps what continually propels the teenager to new heights.<\/p>\n Katie, who is homeschooled and the youngest of seven kids, spent a little over three weeks this fall at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Shari chaperoned for part of the trip, and she stopped by the pool every once in a while during practices. She found herself getting emotional seeing how hard her daughter and the other swimmers work and how much they sacrifice for a shot at their goals.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I also do believe that there is even bigger greatness inside her that hasn\u2019t broken out yet, and I\u2019m excited for that,\u201d Shari said. \u201cBecause every time we show up somewhere, that girl literally amazes us with something totally out of the blue that we weren\u2019t expecting.\u201d<\/p>\n When Katie was around 3, a Sandpipers coach noticed her older brother Carter at the YMCA pool. Carter had been a gymnast until he grew too tall, and he looked good in the water, so the coach approached Shari to ask if the family would be interested in joining the swim club. Carter tried it and excelled, eventually swimming at the University of Missouri.<\/p>\n From that moment on, \u201cKatie pretty much grew up on the pool deck,\u201d said Shari, who had a 12-passenger van because of her big family and frequently drove Sandpipers swimmers to and from practice. The young Katie was her carpool pal, sitting in her car seat in the back.<\/p>\n \u201cShe loved being around the swimmers,\u201d Shari said. \u201cIt was just kind of a natural progression for her to start swimming when she got to that age.\u201d<\/p>\n As she emerged as an elite swimmer, Grimes made it her goal to make the 2024 Olympics in Paris. She would not have been a contender to make the Tokyo Olympics as a 14-year-old had they been held in 2020, as originally scheduled. But when those Games got delayed a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it changed Grimes\u2019 outlook. Her confidence was high, and a part of her wondered if she could make the team.<\/p>\n She felt best about her 400-meter individual medley. But when she dove in for the race the first morning of those U.S. Olympic Trials, everything went wrong.<\/p>\n \u201cI just completely ate it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Her nerves got the best of her. She had a vision of how the race would go, and had she swam her seed time, she would have made the final. Instead, she added nearly five seconds.<\/p>\n After the race, Grimes lay in her Omaha hotel room, sobbing. Inconsolable. All Shari could do was sit on the bed with her daughter and let her cry.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the most devastated we\u2019ve seen her,\u201d Shari said.<\/p>\n Katie was sharing a room with her older brother Sawyer, who swam at the University of Minnesota and also made the Olympic Trials. He gave her a pep talk with \u201cnot the nicest words,\u201d Katie said, laughing.<\/p>\n \u201cJust kind of pulled me back up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n It was exactly what she needed. Over the coming days, she demolished her best time in the 1,500-meter freestyle, finishing third and narrowly missing the Olympic team. Katie Ledecky, whom Grimes had pictures of on her wall as a kid, told the young swimmer she was the future. Then, in Grimes\u2019 last event, she eked into the final of the 800-meter freestyle, setting up one of the storybook swims of the meet. In the final, she out-touched Olympic medalist Haley Anderson for second place, qualifying for the Olympics.<\/p>\n Grimes punched the water with excitement when she saw her time and placement. Ledecky, who got first, swam over to congratulate her, lifting her competitor\u2019s hand into the air so the crowd could cheer.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s the now!\u201d Ledecky said in her post-race interview with NBC, amending her statement from earlier in the meet.<\/p>\n “You’re the future. She’s the now.”<\/p>\n 15-year-old Katie Grimes will join THE Katie Ledecky at the #TokyoOlympics<\/a> this summer. #SwimTrials21<\/a><\/p>\n \ud83d\udcfa NBC pic.twitter.com\/bLQQa1G8Qh<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) June 20, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n It was a career-altering moment for Grimes, whose youth was apparent as she stood next to the then-24-year-old Ledecky. Sponsorship deals would follow, and she was set to head halfway around the globe to race at the world\u2019s biggest swim meet. Swimming, in her words, was \u201cnever going to be a silly little thing anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis just got serious,\u201d she thought to herself.<\/p>\n Making the Olympics at 15 was a momentous accomplishment in itself. Grimes, who was the youngest member of Team USA in Tokyo, followed her qualification up by dropping even more time in her preliminary 800-meter freestyle swim. But she was a tad slower in the final \u2014 though still faster than her breakout swim at trials \u2014 and missed the podium by a second. Had she swam her prelims time, she would have gotten bronze.<\/p>\n Was she happy with her swims, considering how big of an accomplishment a fourth-in-the-world finish is?<\/p>\n \u201cUm \u2026\u201d she said, pausing for a moment. \u201cNot really.\u201d<\/p>\n Grimes rode by herself on the shuttle to the Olympic village, then sat under a tree to call her parents, who were watching from the U.S. She cried as they emphasized how proud they were of her.<\/p>\n \u201cI just felt like such a loser,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Her fellow Team USA swimmers were supportive, though, and Grimes eventually came to the realization that she had put together an impressive summer.<\/p>\n Narrowly missing out on the podium also gave her a carrot to chase in 2024. She said it\u2019s helped keep her motivated, though she estimates she still would have had plenty of drive had she come away with a medal.<\/p>\n Though trials and the Olympics was Grimes\u2019 highest-profile meet of 2021, they weren\u2019t her last formative one. When she\u2019s dealing with tough circumstances, her mom reminds her of how she handled that winter\u2019s Short Course World Championships in Abu Dhabi. Grimes contracted COVID-19 during the meet, forcing her to withdraw from competition. She then had to isolate in a foreign country. When her family celebrated Christmas back in the U.S., the 15-year-old was alone in quarantine.<\/p>\n Fellow U.S. Olympian Regan Smith remembers being touched by Grimes using her extra time to send Merry Christmas texts to her teammates.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s something I\u2019ll never forget,\u201d Smith said. \u201cA simple story like that, it tells a lot about who she is.\u201d<\/p>\n The two-plus-hour race came down to a tenth of a second. It was the 2023 world championships, and Grimes reached for the finish in the 10-kilometer open water event. Her hand, it was decided after a photo finish review, touched ahead of Sharon van Rouwendaal and Ana Marcela Cunha, the past two Olympic gold medalists. She had won bronze, making her the first official U.S. Olympian for Paris and a two-time Olympian at age 17.<\/p>\n A THRILLING finish as Katie Grimes became the first athlete to qualify by name for the 2024 U.S. Olympic team!@USASwimming<\/a> | @TeamUSA<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/2Y0n0Ml1sx<\/a><\/p>\n
\n Katie Ledecky and Grimes pose after qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics in the 800-meter freestyle at the U.S. Trials in June 2021. \u201cShe\u2019s the now!\u201d Ledecky said of Grimes, then just 15 years old. (Al Bello \/ Getty Images)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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