Two swimmers were forced to watch the 2008 Beijing Olympics from home. Not because they were injured, but because it was too late to change the US roster when it was announced that a qualifier, Jessica Hardy, had tested positive for an anabolic agent at the Trials.
One of those swimmers, Tara Kirk, has since retired.
The other, Lara Jackson, is still competing. The Texas native had never done two-a-day workouts until she walked on to the team at the University of Arizona, but she broke Dara Torres’ American record in the heats of the 50-meter freestyle at Trials. What has happened to her since then has been similarly surreal.
To understand how, it helps to start at the beginning.
Jackson grew up in El Paso as the younger of Martina and Keith’s two daughters, and when her sister, Carly Rose joined a swim team, 10-year-old Lara was dropped off at the pool with her. And after just a summer of training, Lara ranked third in the state for her age group.
Around the same time, Jackson fell in love with horses and her parents let her ride the docile mares at a stable for five dollars an hour.
At 16, Jackson leased a tan-colored mare named Calypso, who has been a key figure in her life ever since. Jackson described her as “a mutt – maybe part quarter horse and mustang.”
“She’s very charismatic and full of energy,” Jackson said. “She sometimes has these moments when she’s a little sassy – a little on the crazy side – but I dig that in a horse. We’re a perfect match.”
When Jackson left for the University of Arizona in 2005, she told her parents, “I can’t give her up; she’s not just a pet.” Her parents told her that if she did well in swimming, they would move Calypso to Arizona for her.
It was a tall order. Jackson had never lifted weights seriously in high school or trained as intensely as her fellow freshmen, but she had won back-to-back Texas state high school championships in the 50-yard freestyle as a junior and senior at Chapin High School in El Paso.
Yet Arizona coach Rick DeMont liked her solid technique and her sprinter’s build. “She’s very fast-twitch and has a giant vertical leap for a woman, about 30 inches,” he said. “But she didn’t have the yardage. She came apart real quick. You could train the gift right out of her really quickly. Then, sophomore year – Boom!”
In December 2006, a month after Jackson purchased Calypso for $600 and boarded her about six miles away from the Tucson campus, Jackson broke through at the Texas Invitational. She chopped 1.01 seconds off her personal best in the 50-yard freestyle and set a school record in 22.05 seconds.
“I was a little surprised,” DeMont said. “But I could tell that something was coming; I knew we hadn’t seen what she could do.”
At the 2007 NCAA Championships that spring, she placed second in the 50-yard freestyle and helped the Wildcats win two relays.
“Here was this girl who came in and couldn’t even do a whole practice, and she wins a national title,” said her former Arizona teammate Taylor Baughman. “It was more than any of us could say.”
In retrospect, Jackson said, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I had a breakout swim once [my horse] got here. I think Calypso has definitely helped my swimming.”
That August, at the 2007 US National Championships in Indianapolis, Jackson placed second in the 50-meter freestyle, behind Torres who had already competed in four Olympics.
As a junior, Jackson went on to win her first individual NCAA title, in the 50-yard freestyle. A few months later, Jackson arrived at the 2008 US Olympic Trials in Omaha, Nebraska.
“I was excited,” she said. “I didn’t have much experience at such a big level, but I thought, ‘It’s cool, it’s no big deal. When I got there, the atmosphere makes you hungry.”
Hungry and fast.
She made headlines early at Trials when she swam 24.50 seconds in her 50-meter free heat – an American record.
“After that, I was like, ‘Holy [expletive]! I could be an Olympian!’” Jackson, said. “I could reach out and grab it.”
“She was smokin’ fast,” coach DeMont recalled. “I was a little worried, though. I wished the American record didn’t happen because it put a lot of media attention on her.”
Although Torres lowered Jackson’s American record eight hours later in the 50-free semifinals, Jackson made the cut for the eight-woman final. The top two finishers would go to Beijing.
Between races, DeMont said, “I tried not to put too much in her mind. I was just trying to keep her in the game. She’s got good powers of focus.”
Jackson’s mother, father, sister, and paternal grandparents were all in the stands wearing shirts that automatically identified them as Lara’s fans. On the back were two giant stars – one over each shoulder blade – which matched Lara’s tattoos.
In the 50-meter freestyle final, however, Jackson swam the first half of the race too fast and missed her breakout (where the swimmer rises to the surface of the water). Because she was submerged a bit too long, DeMont said, “She had 35 meters of acceleration, and it went to deceleration. It cost her.”
Jackson placed third – one spot (and seven hundredths of a second) shy of making the Olympic team.
“I was disappointed, but not in a sad way,” Jackson said. “I did my three fastest times ever in a row [24.50 prelims; 24.94 semis; 24.88 final]. With experience you learn how to swim those triples. I misjudged, but I was pretty damn proud of myself to come so close, and to get to say I was American record holder.”
Just a few days after the US Olympic swim roster was finalized, it was announced that Hardy tested positive for the anabolic agent clenbuterol.
When DeMont called and asked Jackson, “Have you heard?” she replied, “About what?”
“I don’t know,” DeMont continued, “Maybe about getting on the Olympic team.”
Once again, “I was like: Holy [expletive]!” Jackson said.
Jackson was not alone. Tara Kirk was in a similar position. She had placed third in the 100-meter breaststroke at Trials behind Hardy and just .01 seconds slower than the runner-up Megan Jendrick.
“[Kirk] was the one keeping me informed,” Jackson said, but ultimately, the roster never changed and neither went to China.
Instead, Jackson watched the 2008 Beijing Games with her roommate in Tucson. “I loved watching that Olympics,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘Wow! I know a lot of these people.’ I didn’t realize until a lot later that I wished I would have gone.”
“Lara would have done well in Beijing,” DeMont said. ”But more than anything, the experience would have been important. Feeling it, living it – it’s a shame she missed that.”
In March 2009, Jackson’s family reassembled for Lara’s final NCAA Championships and watched her successfully defend her NCAA title in the 50-yard freestyle and set an NCAA record (21.27 seconds) in the first leg of the 4x50-yard freestyle relay to help Arizona win its third consecutive title in that event.
But the high quickly came to a devastating halt.
On Thursday morning April 9, 2009, exactly three weeks after the NCAA Championships, Jackson woke up in Tucson and noticed several missed calls on her cell phone.
“I couldn’t get hold of anyone,” she said.
As she learned later, her father, Keith, had just died in a bizarre motorcycle accident.
According to police reports cited in the El Paso Times, Keith Jackson was riding his 2002 Honda Gold Wing on a windy night when he was struck by an exit sign that was dangling over the road. Police said they believed the sign broke because of gusts that reached nearly 60 mph that night. After he hit the sign, he crashed and died on the roadway at about 1 a.m. According to Lara’s mother, Martina, he had been working overtime to prepare tax returns before the April 15 deadline and was on his way home from the office. Police said he was not speeding and was wearing a helmet. Keith Jackson was 53.
After receiving the news, Lara withdrew from her classes and flew home immediately.
The university paid for her flight to El Paso. The athletic department sent flowers, and her teammates came to the funeral.
“So many people cared about Keith and Lara,” Baughman said. “When you’re away at school, some parents are active and some aren’t. They were constant faces on the pool deck.”
After a week at home, however, Jackson said, “I couldn’t stay there. Being in El Paso is torture because of what happened. I had to leave.”
Back in Tucson, she said, “I started training as soon as I could and did everything I thought was necessary to go [to the 2009 World Championships in Rome, Italy], but I just didn’t make it.
In July 2009, at the US Nationals in Indianapolis, Jackson placed third in 50-meter free behind Torres and the runner-up, Amanda Weir. Had Jackson swam two hundredths of a second faster, she would have made her first world championship team.
Another near miss.
But Jackson didn’t quit. She tried to swim fast through November, while competing in World Cup meets from South Africa to Germany to Singapore.
“It was good to get away, see new competitions and new pools,” she said. “It helped rejuvenate my love for swimming.”
Jackson also coped by spending more time with Calypso, but the horse had long been a source of comfort. “She helped me with everything,” Jackson said. It’s really hard to explain. Sometimes you have that dog that you have a certain bond with, but it’s on a different level with a horse because she’s so much bigger than me. It’s like you’re trusting her with your life every time you get on her.”
“My mom teases me that Calypso is cheaper than a therapist,” Jackson said. “She helps me stay balanced.
“Calypso makes my heart whole,” she said.
Yet Jackson’s father is never far from her mind; she recently had his initials, KJ, inked on the inside of her wrist.
She also remains committed to her major, which she identified long ago as Animal Science with a specialty in equine industry.
“The fact that she comes in as a high school senior and says I’m going to major in equine studies and I’m bringing my horse,” DeMont said, “I thought: there’s no way on this planet that’s going to happen. It’s too much of a time constraint. But she’s held the course. That’s someone who’s strong-minded.”
Her commitment to horses also tested the boundaries of the tightly-set college swimming regimen. For example, Jackson and DeMont had to sit down to map out a practice schedule the week Jackson was required to help deliver a baby horse. “It was hectic because you don’t know exactly when the horse would be born, and she’d be in the barn all night for her major,” Baughman said.
The 23-year-old Jackson is a now a fifth-year student at Arizona. She just completed a heavy academic load toward her degree and with just 18 units remaining, she figured she could be done by December if she temporarily quit swimming, but that’s not her plan.
She will compete this weekend at the Grand Prix in Santa Clara, California, followed by the Los Angeles Grand Prix (July 8-11), and the US National Championships in Irvine, California (August 2-7).
She is also aiming at the 2012 London Olympics and doesn’t want her chances to come down a one-lap race this time.
As the shortest event at the Olympic Trials, Jackson said, “The 50 is like shooting craps. I want to be a contender in the 100 free.”
To that end, Jackson will continue working with DeMont and training in the same pool as Christine Magnuson and Matt Grevers, two multiple medalists from the 2008 Beijing Games.
“NCAAs were totally fun but [training independently] keeps you growing as a swimmer,” Jackson said. “I feel like I’m at a growing point.”
Aimee Berg is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of the United States Olympic Committee or any National Governing Bodies.
