Gabert thrives under pressure

STEVE VIRGEN

As the high school swim season nears, there’s a name aquatics fans

should start getting used to seeing and hearing about.

Stephanie Gabert.

At Corona del Mar High expectations are at an all-time high for

its girls swim team. That’s because Gabert is preparing for her

freshman season with the Sea Kings and ready to make the most of her

debut.

She certainly did her best with her first impression at a national

meet last week. Gabert had a coming-out party of sorts at the Spring

National Championships in Orlando, Fla., Wednesday. Gabert, 14,

qualified for the Olympic trials, finishing 21st in the 200-meter

breaststroke in 2:35.94.

The qualifying time for the Olympic trials, July 7-14 in Long

Beach, is 2:35.99.

“At first I thought I was looking at the wrong time,” said Gabert

on her cellular phone moments after leaving Disney World Saturday.

“It was really exciting. I really believed I would do it.”

Gabert’s feat had been a work in progress since she was 3. That’s

when she started swimming for the Harbor View Swim Team, headed by

Ted Bandaruk. When she was 9 she joined the Irvine Aquazots swim

club. Then a day after her 14th birthday, Oct. 21, Gabert started to

train twice a day in preparation for her first national meet.

She left her parents behind and went solo to Florida. Mom, Cheri,

and dad, Paul, stayed home and tracked their daughter’s performance

on the Internet.

“It was her first major meet that we decided we wouldn’t go,” Paul

said. “She obviously grew up a little bit on her trip.”

Gabert said she was nervous to be competing at her first national

meet, but once she started to swim, the anxiety went away. The nerves

will most likely come back in July. But for now she is just excited

to know that she will be in the Olympic trials.

“She was very excited,” said Aquazots Coach Brian Pajer, who is

also the head coach at UC Irvine. “She had been training well enough

to [qualify for the Olympic trials]. It was depending on how she

would handle the big national meet. She was right on it.”

Gabert has accomplished a great deal, considering she has only

started two-a-day training in October. She definitely has potential

and promise to become a great swimmer in the breaststroke, but she

knows she has to continue to work.

“She’s still fairly skinny,” Pajer said. “And, she doesn’t have a

tremendous amount of strength. She still has a lot of room to grow in

the next several years.”

Gabert is aware of the work ahead of her. She feels fortunate that

she has already achieved qualification for the Olympic trials, but

she doesn’t want it to stop there. She wants more.

“I just like dropping a lot of time,” Gabert said in regard to

what her goals are. “It just makes me feel good. Maybe make the

Olympics [is a goal]. Yes, I do want to make the Olympics. It would

be hard. But I can make a shot for it.”

*

This year’s Olympic swim trials will be at the new facility in

Long Beach, the Aquatics Grand Prix, near the Long Beach Arena. To

prepare for that event, the Aquatics Grand Prix will break in with

the Janet Evans Invitational, which is usually at USC.

The Janet Evans Invitational will be June 10-13.

The Olympic swim trials will be held in Southern California for

the first time since 1980.