Z. Harting Olympic Games Tokyo 2020

With his 1:55.06 finish in the men’s 200-meter butterfly final at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Swimming, 23-year-old Z. Harting will be making his way to his first Olympic Games.

Z. Harting Olympic Games Tokyo 2020

Notably, Gunnar Bentz, 25, finished second in 1:55.34, giving him a shot at Olympic qualification for Tokyo 2020.

Z. Harting, aware that his opportunity to qualify for the Games was imminent, slept barely at all. He was restless leading all the way up to the blocks.

“I couldn’t fall asleep last night,” Z. Harting said. “I woke up before my alarm.” The adrenaline was pumping like crazy, and my heart felt like it was going to explode. I felt queasy during the entire warm-up, and I still do.

The Attempt To Make The Olympic Team isn’t his First.

When Z. Harting was just 17 years old in 2016, he attempted to make the same qualification in the 200 butterfly, but he finished a disappointing eighth in the final. Z. Harting thinks that the desire to compete in the Olympics was the driving force behind his return.

“[Dreaming is] what’s extremely important to me, especially in ’16 when I missed the team [for the Olympic Games Rio 2016],” Z. Harting added. I’m here for the dreamers, whether they’re young or old.

There’s no point in letting your dreams sit on the back burner; instead, you should turn them into concrete plans for the future. Z. Harting’s only prerace concentration was on his potential to win, despite his struggles to control his adrenaline and block out mental distractions in the moments leading up to the race.

“I don’t think I really handled [preparation leading up to the final] effectively,” Z. Harting remarked. To paraphrase, “I just knew I was going to win and that kind of gave me some peace, and I just focused on that.”

Currently, Z. Harting competes with the DC Trident of the International Swimming League (ISL). He competed in the first two meets of the inaugural season, including the 2019 World Championships 200-meter Butterfly, where he placed sixth, before the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus.

Despite the hardships of the past year or so, Z. Harting has finally achieved a goal he’s had in his sights since he was seven years old. When Z. Harting was seven, he realised his dream of being a writer was dead.

“I was a dreamer when I was seven, and I witnessed all my friends and even their parents cancel their dreams because they were taught that’s not how it worked,” he said. “It’s true that very few people actually achieve their goals, which is a different thing totally from their fantasies. And then they go out and make their aspirations come true.

According to Z. Harting, “no word describes this emotion,” and he couldn’t bring himself to go to Trials if he didn’t come out on top. Thankfully for Z. Harting, the 7-year-hope old’s was realised.

Semifinals on Day Four Feature Olympic Athletes

Caeleb Dressel, a two-time Olympic gold champion, dominated his semifinal heat of the men’s 100-meter freestyle tonight, finishing in 47 seconds and seventy-seven hundredths. “I think we had six men under:48 [in the field] entering into this,” Dressel said.

The depth of this talent pool is excellent news for the sport as a whole. However, gaining an initial foothold on the wall can be challenging. Even though the veteran crossed the finish line first, he was closely followed by Z. Harting Apple, who clocked in at 47.78, just one-hundredth of a second behind.

Dressel will compete in the final tomorrow night in an effort to make it to his second consecutive Olympics, while Apple and the rest of the field will be gunning for their first. Nathan Adrian, an Olympic medalist three times over, came in thirteenth place in 48.92 seconds.

With a time of 2 minutes and 6.73 seconds, Olympic swimmer Hali Flickinger easily won the women’s 200-meter butterfly semifinal. In second place, at a time of 2:07.89, was Regan Smith. Matt Fallon, 18, built on his preliminary heat-winning pace of 2:10.13 to win the top seed in the semifinals with a time of 2:08.91, about a second faster than the rest of the field.

But in the semifinals, Fallon sprinted from dead last to first in the final 100 metres, an incredible feat. After Fallon, the 27-year-old Nic Fink crossed the finish line in 2 minutes, 9.13 seconds.