Jumping into the new season, at only the third meet at Ludington, Ellie Adams qualified for states in the 100 backstroke.
She qualified with a 1:04.59, almost a whole second under the time required to qualify. She also qualified in the 200 individual medley with a time of 2:22.49 at Hamilton’s pool.
Adams has put in lots of work throughout her life, trying to qualify for states and with the goal of getting a school record. “I’m looking for a best time and a school record in the 500 free and the 200 IM,” Adams said.
She is going into her 11th year of swimming. She started at age 7 as cross training for softball, but eventually decided to switch to swimming being her main sport and found swimming more enjoyable. She explained some of the training she did while swimming in Arkansas under coach Mohammed Abdelaal of the Aquahawgs, “Often he had us doing swim-specific dryland training and weight lifting as a supplement to swimming every day.” Her coach focused on explosive movements and muscles that would help in the pool, she said.
She had to take a long break from the pool last year due to an ongoing ankle injury, which allowed her to see how important daily activity and swimming really was to her. “Sometimes swim is the reason I get up in the mornings,” she said.
Adams said she has found so many close friends through all of the swim teams she has been a part of. “The skills I’ve acquired through years dedicated to my sport translate far beyond the pool, some in ways I don’t even know yet, but ones like hard work, commitment, teamwork, and a competitive nature are universally applicable,” she added.
Adams hopes to swim at a level that she knows that she can and become nationally relevant and go to college for swimming. She is currently talking to college coaches about signing on to compete at the collegiate level.
As Adams has so much experience, she gives a little advice for future swimmers: “Swimming is a hard sport, and, as individually-driven as it might seem, your team is still a team, and those are people who you can depend on, and who will depend on you.”
Adams also said to surround yourself with good and hard driven people to help push you and make you better, and to make sure that you love doing it cause it doesn’t make sense to do something that you don’t love.
