A pair of area swimmers competed in the four-day U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials that ended Monday at the CHI Health Center in Omaha, Neb.

Tanner Cummings, a Greenwood High School graduate who will be entering his senior season at Louisville, tallied a 17th-place finish in the 100-meter freestyle in the Wave I event for the U.S. Olympic Trials.

“It was a crazy experience,” Cummings said. “It was unlike anything I had ever experienced in the sport. It’s such a huge arena, and just knowing that all the lights are on you at that moment. It’s hard to put into words how crazy it felt.”

Cummings completed the race in 50.95 seconds, good enough to earn alternate status for the finals Friday night. No swimmers withdrew from the finals, leaving Cummings no chance to swim in the finals.

Cummings said his time in the 100 meters was a good one, but not his best in the event.

“You definitely want to get in and get a second swim, so I’m definitely a little disappointed that I missed out on it,” Cummings said. “But honestly I just kind of shifted my mindset, and I really was just trying to enjoy the time and just take it in as some experience so that whenever I move forward and go to bigger and better meets, I just know that I can handle the pressure.”

On Saturday, 2021 Greenwood graduate and Louisville signee Luke Shourds became the first high schooler from Warren County to compete in the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials.

Shourds earned a spot in the Wave I 100-meter breaststroke, where he finished 74th overall in 1:04.56. Shourds swam for Bowling Green-based RACE Aquatics in the Trials.

“I’m just thrilled for Luke,” RACE Aquatics head coach Neil Romney said. “He’s such a determined athlete, as is anybody at this level. You don’t get there by a fluke or by talent alone – you have to have the drive and the discipline to do to work on a daily basis. And Luke’s done that.

“ … We’re talking about 1,300 athletes qualified out of 350,000 registered USA Swimming athletes, and if you’re counting high school and summer league athletes, you’re probably looking at close to a million competitive swimmers in the country. So it really is about 1% of the competitive swimmers qualify.”

Romney said Shourds also produced a strong time at the Trials, but not quite as fast as his qualifying mark to make the meet. That buildup came at the same time Shourds was prepping for the end of his high school and club team swim seasons.

“He expended all of his aerobic bank account just to get there,” Romney said. “It was quite an achievement. He was looking good in practice, but he mentioned he thought he warmed up a little bit too early in advance of the event.”

Cummings completed his meet Monday in the 50-meter freestyle, finishing in a tie for 32nd with a time of 23.18.

“I was happy to get under the original Trials cut to get into the meet,” Cummings said. “Just overall throughout the week, had a really good time and I was really happy with how we performed as a team.”

Cummings and Shourds did not advance to next week’s Wave II U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials meet, where qualifying for the U.S. Olympic team will take place.

Romney thinks Shourds has a strong chance to return for the next U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials in four years.

“I expect that he will continue to improve over his collegiate years,” Romney said. “I think he’s got a promising future ahead of him and I would expect to see him continue to impress and be at Trials again in four years and be a contender.”

Cummings also isn’t ruling out making the Trials at least a twice-in-a-lifetime accomplishment.

“I would really like to pursue it – it’s just putting the pieces together,” Cummings said. “I’ve got to keep improving, hopefully to a level where I can do the sport professionally and then hopefully after my college career is over, I can keep going and train for the next Olympics.”{&end}