Conquering the Open Water

At the start of the open water 10k, dozens of participants take off on a course with no lanes to limit accidental (and deliberate) contact in water that can range from dangerously cold to dangerously hot.

To be successful, a racer has to be both responsible and completely irresponsible. He has to pace himself so as not to run out of steam, but then push his body to an unimaginable extreme.  To succeed, a swimmer also needs the help of others, who must keep a good pace and allow him to draft behind them, decreasing the amount of energy needed to propel oneself through the turbulent water.

And even if a racer can do all of that, adversity is still inevitable. Above all, just keep swimming. It is a torturous race—and that makes it the perfect race for Alex Meyer ’10.

With its continuous challenges and demand for persistence, the race is, in many ways, reflective of what Meyer has gone through to reach the 2012 Olympics.

‘SLOW AND STEADY’

Meyer grew up in a household with a former diver for a father and a former swimmer who taught swimming at a local YMCA as a mother. By the age of seven, Meyer was swimming competitively, but he showed few signs of future Olympic-level success.

“Alex was never the superstar,” Shawn Meyer, his mother, said. “I would describe Alex’s ascent into the higher levels of swimming as slow and steady.”

Although he wasn’t the fastest in the pool, Meyer’s mom said he loved the sport from the very beginning.

“We tried to expose him to other sports but he just never seemed to really take to any of the other sports,” Shawn Meyer said. “I think he just really loved swimming.”

Meyer may have started slow, but by the time he was a teenager, he was swimming at an elite level. In high school, he was an four-time All-American and a New York State Champion in the 500-meter freestyle in his last two years.

Those performances set Meyer up to choose between a number of schools vying for his enrollment. He focused his attention on top academic schools.

“He knew the importance of a strong academic focus because swimming wasn’t go to last forever,” Shawn Meyer said. “The important thing was to leverage his swimming ability into going to the best school he could.”

Eventually, Meyer settled on Harvard, but not just because of the academic opportunities it presented.

“Sam Wollner [’08 ]was one of the defining reasons that Alex knew he could go to Harvard,” Shawn Meyer said of Harvard swimming’s former co-captain. “Alex knew that this was somebody that he could train with and continue to get better.”

Shawn Meyer also said that swimming coach Tim Murphy was a big reason that Meyer eventually enrolled at Harvard.

“Tim and Alex have a very similar mentality about things,” Harvard teammate Tommy Gray ’10 said. “I think they are both really, really intense and passionate about what they do. They’ve always worked well together.”

A LONG AND WINDING ROAD

Much like the early years of his career in the pool, Meyer didn’t coast to success during his Harvard career. In his first year, Meyer finished third at the Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet in the 1650-meter freestyle event.

That finish only came after a tumultuous year. Meyer contracted mono, broke out in hives, had his wisdom teeth removed, and struggled to adjust academically. But just as in racing, Meyer continued to fight through the adversity.

“He’s just a tough guy,” Gray said. “He missed a lot of training, but wanted to swim in his first college meet, and his coaches had to literally restrain him. He’s had a lot of injuries, but he’s always come back from them.”

“He just was struggling,” Shawn Meyer said. “But he decided ‘No, I am not going to give up. I am committed to this and I am going to complete this,’ and he did.”

By sophomore year, Meyer rebounded and progressed, eventually finishing second in the 1650 at the HYP. As a junior, he won the meet. And over the period, he had shaved 30 seconds off his time.

Meyer suffered another setback during his senior year, breaking a vertebra. Once again though, Meyer recovered, this time setting a record in the mile by the end of the year.

“He took great pride in acknowledging how he trended up at Harvard,” Shawn Meyer said. “At the end of his junior year, I remember him calling saying, ‘My GPA was something at the end of my freshman year, my second year it was this, at the end of my junior year it’s this.’ For Alex, it was always about trending up and getting better.”

While Meyer succeeded at Harvard, he couldn’t achieve his ultimate goal. Years earlier, Meyer had traveled to the 2000 Olympic trials. Sitting in the stands then, he set his sights on the Olympics, but given a chance in the 2008 Olympic Trials, Meyer finished 34th and did not qualify for Beijing.

GOING LONG

But another window to the Olympics was opening for Meyer. Though swimming events were held in open water in the first modern Olympics in 1896, open water events disappeared from the Olympic schedule until 2008, when the 10k was added. It was perfect timing for Meyer.

Throughout his career, he had been in love with taking on the open water.

Meyer spent his youth on the edge of Cayuga Lake. As he grew up, he and his parents would often go out and swim on the body of water, and Meyer competed in the open water events that were sometimes tacked onto the end of youth competitions.

Ithaca Aquatics Club coach Roy Staley said that Meyer fell in love with open water racing at Camp Chikopi, where Staley took a group of 10 and 11-year-old swimmers every summer.

Staley said time at the camp, which only has open water, helped young swimmers like Meyer develop the creativity necessary to thrive in open water competition, and that Meyer loved that aspect of the event.

By the time he was a teenager, Meyer traveled to Florida and California to compete against grown adults, and he did well. Eventually, he discovered that, while he may have been among the best in the pool, he had the endurance to excel in the marathon races.

“Anything that makes the race more difficult, he really thrives on,” Gray said. “I think he swam open water a little bit, but he really started excelling at it late in his college career. The pool just wasn’t long enough.

“The longer the better,” Gray added. “The more pain most people get and the more pain he can inflict on people, the better he can do.”

Following each college season, Meyer continued going to Fort Myers to compete in an open water race, and by 2009, he was named to USA select team for open water swimming.

I GET BY WITH A LITTLE HELP

When Meyer began competing internationally following his 2010 graduation, he reunited with Fran Crippen, a swimmer with whom he had roomed in a visit to Virginia during the recruiting process.  At that time, Meyer looked up to Fran and hoped to emulate him.

“He learned a lot from Fran Crippen, who was kind of the elder statesmen in open water,” Gray said.

The summer after graduation, Meyer won the 25k at the 2010 FINA world championships, and began eyeing the Olympics once again.

“I think it was this kind of dream that he and Fran kind of devised together,” Shawn Meyer said. “I think he probably started seeing the potential when he was on the national team, but it was just a fleeting, passing thought in 2009. Then in 2010, when he won the 25k and then was traveling on the world circuit with Fran, I’m sure they did a lot of talking and planning.”

In the 2010 Pan Pacific championships, Meyer showed his remarkable determination again as he attempted to race while battling sickness.

“He hadn’t eaten in a couple of days,” Shawn Meyer said. “He couldn’t hold anything down.  I said to him, ‘Don’t let your pride have the potential to hurt you.’”

Meyer still attempted to race but fell behind the pack. Crippen, aware of Meyer’s sickness because the two had roomed together like always, turned around to go back and check on Meyer, who eventually withdrew. Crippen then turned back around and raced back up to the front of the pack, ultimately finishing in second. The two had become inseparable allies working on their way to the Olympics.

THE ELDER STATESMAN

One week before an event in Dubai, Meyer had an appendectomy. Despite the setback, he still considered racing in the event, or possibly one a few days later at the same location. Either way, Meyer was certain that he had to go to Dubai to support his friend Crippen.

What Meyer passed on by opting out of the race was a competition held in 86-degree water and even hotter air. Waiting for Crippen at the finish line, Meyer began worrying when his friend was not among any of the top finishers. Eventually, he went back to look for Crippen. After an extensive search, Crippen’s body was found and brought to an area hospital, where he was declared dead.

Meyer’s mom, who had been working that day, got a call from Crippen’s cell phone. It was Meyer.

“He was devastated,” Shawn Meyer said.

Following the tragedy, Meyer returned home and spent time with his family and the Crippen family. Getting back in the water was hard at first.

“Alex would tell you there were difficult days,” Shawn Meyer said. “He would be swimming for hours and not have the energy or the enthusiasm.”

Meyer was aided in the grieving process by Murphy, his former coach who continued to train him. Murphy kept a close eye on Meyer to make sure he was recovering from the emotional blow.

Today, Meyer continues to train with Murphy who was named the U.S. open water swimming coach for the 2012 Games.

“I’m in awe with what Tim manages because training someone for open water is not the same as for pool events, but he carries that kayak out and is there for hours,” Meyer said.

After a time, Meyer began to view the loss of his friend as motivation to work harder than ever.

“He just continued to imagine that dream that he and Fran shared when rooming together,” Shawn said. “He just continued to pursue that dream, and he did it with a renewed vigor and just felt as though he needed to see that through.”

Despite the incredible setback, Meyer kept on his steady pace of improvement. In 2011, he won the U.S. Open Water Championship, and then came in fourth in the world championship, becoming the first U.S. swimmer to qualify for the Olympics.

Along the way, Meyer has used skills he learned from Crippen to succeed in the complicated sport.

“Alex is still young, but he is kind of becoming that elder statesman for open water now,” Gray said.

THE HOME STRETCH

Meyer’s gradual ascent—despite the adversity—has now gotten him to London. The only question that remains is how well he can do against the world’s best on sports’ center stage.

In typical Meyer fashion, adversity reared its head before he could even get in the water as the Olympian. Over the winter, Meyer broke his collarbone in a bicycle accident, forcing him to adjust his training program.

"Something always seems to happen to him before something important in swimming," Staley said. "Yet he has his way of dealing with it. He might have gotten hurt or sick or something, but...he’s always had a way of making it work out. On one hand you worry about it and then on the other hand you say, 'This is Alex, he may just stand on the podium.'"

The Aug. 10 race, one of the latest of the Olympics, is Meyer’s chance to medal for himself, for Crippen, and for the United States.

“I think he has as good of a shot as anybody,” Gray said. “It always comes down to the pack of four to five to six guys in front, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Alex wasn’t up there in that pack. Then what happens in those last 200 yards is anyone’s game.”

If his career is any indication, he’s ready for the adversity of the grueling race.

“I’d like to be on the podium, and I think I have a pretty good chance of that,” Meyer said. “That’s the whole purpose of being there.”

—Staff writer Jacob D. H. Feldman can be reached at jacobfeldman@college.harvard.edu.