preliminary heats now and the semifinals tonight. If Adam wanted him to swim in the relay tomorrow night, that could end up being a tall order.
But no matter. He walked out to the blocks as the third heat exited the pool. The fastest time in that heat was only 4:07.85. Isaac could swim this race in 4:06 easy, 4:05 if he pushed it, and, as the scoreboard had indicated four years ago, in 4:03 on freaky days when he’d destroyed the world record.
He unzipped his jacket and glanced at the field. Hsu, a Chinese swimmer, was the reigning world champion. McKeown had been at this as long as Isaac had, an old vet but probably still a factor. LeBlanc was good but past his prime. And anyway, given how slow the previous heats had been, Isaac just had to finish in the top four and he’d advance.
He stripped to his swimsuit and went through the prerace ritual: checked his cap, tugged it over his ears, checked his goggles, adjusting them, even though they didn’t really need adjusting, stretched his arms over his head, tugged on the waistband of his swimsuit, shook out his arms, bowed toward the pool, splashed water on himself, then stood back up. The ready whistle sounded. He stood beside the block and watched McKeown do the dumb prerace dance he’d been doing for fifteen years, kind of a kicky samba thing.
The whistle to get on the blocks sounded. Isaac consciously tried to shove aside the fact that this was the first swim in this Olympics. Just another meet. He had this.
“On your marks.”
Isaac crouched into position on the block.
The buzzer sounded.
Jumping off the block was a Pavlovian response at this point. Isaac got in the water before his brain caught up to what was happening. Then he threw out his arms to start the butterfly. Butterfly was the hardest stroke for him, so he was happy to get it over with first; it took a lot of strength to get his upper body out of the water enough to bring his arms out and in front of him to act as paddles as he pushed himself forward in the water. But he felt good. He swam strong, he sliced through the water, and then spotted the wall. He touched the side of the pool and turned to do it again. And he flew. In no time, he reached the wall again. He flipped back, raised his arms for the backstroke. His pace was not leisurely, and his arms tingled a little, but this stroke was easier on his body. He essentially floated down the pool until he saw the flags indicating the turn was ten meters away. He flipped and did it again, looking up at the ceiling of the Aquatics Center, following along with the latticework grid of the unfinished ceiling to help keep him swimming in a straight line. Then he turned into the breaststroke, which was his stroke, and he found the joy of it now. He didn’t look at the lanes beside him. He didn’t think about semifinals or finals. He just swam the way he knew he could. He glided through the water. This was easy. This was fun. Then the final turn, and he pulled his arms into the crawl stroke, and just… went. Moved like the water was pushing him instead of working against him. He swam to the wall, flipped, and then turned it on a little, pushing himself to finish the race. He touched the wall and popped his head up.
Well, considering men were still swimming, he’d done all right. He glanced up at the scoreboard. 4:06.25. First place in the heat by two seconds.
Christ.
He treaded water for a second, trying to catch his breath. His body burned, but in a satisfying way. Hsu tapped his hand in congratulations.
He climbed out of the pool. A reporter interviewed guys as they walked back to the ready room, but Isaac ignored her. He gathered his things from the side of the pool and gave the reporter a wide berth, hoping not to be stopped. When he was safely inside the athletes-only area, Adam walked over and slapped him on the back. “You might just pull this off.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. That was insane. Best I’ve seen you swim in a while. You beat the rest of the field by a body length. How much are you hurting?”
“I feel all right.” He still panted, not quite having regained his breath, but his body