KEY POINTS:
As Melissa Ingram swims her way up and down her lane of the Millennium Pool in Auckland, she spares a glance at the swimmers on the other side who aren't going to Beijing.
Four years ago, she was one of them; her goggles filling with tears as
she pounded out the lengths, even though she was out of the New Zealand swim team for the Athens Olympics.
"It was a long, tough winter watching the Olympians across the other side of the pool, knowing I wasn't one of them," Ingram remembers. She was then 17 and had wanted to finish her high school years with a bursary - her dream was to become a lawyer. She had proven herself in the pool - as a sixth former, she'd finished eighth in the Commonwealth Games 200m backstroke final - but with school exams, swimming had to take a back seat.
"Then I naively thought three months of training would be enough to qualify for Athens. I was a bit cocky, and I just missed out on an A [qualifying] time. I was shattered," she says. She could have moped, but Ingram dived straight back in, five days later - "I said, 'right, I'm going to fix this'." And that's what she did - and more.
By the end of that year, 2004, she was one of the fastest 200m backstrokers in the world in short-course (that's a 25m pool). And with every swim she got faster - to the point where this year, she smashed the 2m 12s barrier most international women backstrokers battle with, wiping out Anna Simcic's 17-year national record en route and comfortably qualifying for both the 100m and 200m backstroke for the Beijing Olympics.
When she swam 2m 9.61s at the Olympic trials in March, she was one of the fastest women backstrokers in the world over 200m. To get to Beijing, the rest of her life has been put on hold. She's stopped going to university - a few papers short of a Bachelor of Arts degree - and, for now, she's shelved her dream to be a journalist (she's given away law). Her family and friends understand if she doesn't make it to a birthday party - she's in the pool six days a week, more often than not twice a day.
Still living at home on Auckland's North Shore and her mum has excused her from house-cleaning duties - until September. But the happy-go-lucky and confident 23-year-old admits she's never become bored, or ever regretted giving her all to make the Olympics this time. "I don't think I've made sacrifices - this is what I want to do.
It's an amazing life and you only get to live it for a short time," she says. Jan Cameron, the hugely-respected head coach of our Olympic swim team, says she's immensely proud of Ingram, whom she's known since she was a nipper, and puts her evolution down to a leap in maturity. "She was always talented, had plenty of guts and determination, but the ability to harness all of it has come from a huge gain in maturity over the last four years," she says.
Ingram's freakish ability to go faster every time she races these days comes from readiness, the no-nonsense Cameron says. "She knows she's done the work, she has a quiet confidence that comes from maturity and an exposure to the world. She believes she belongs at the top now." Passion returned to Ingram when she won bronze at the world short-course championships in 2004, but the true turning point came during a trip to the United States last year.
For years she had been bashing against a mental barrier, trying to break 2m 12s over 200m. The 200m backstroke is a painful arduous event - lactic acid burns in your legs from the halfway turn; and there's a fine line between kicking hard enough and over-kicking. In long-course races (in 50m Olympic-length pools), the harder Ingram tried, the slower she swam. "I wanted it so much that every time I got in the pool I went slower.
I realised I had to learn to relax and let things take their course," she says. Racing at no-pressure US meets over three consecutive weekends, Ingram found her groove. "It was so much fun - I broke meet records, I relaxed and enjoyed it. You don't have to be really uptight and totally focused - you have to relax a bit.
Okay, it's probably easier said than done for big competitions. But it was the turning point for me - sitting back and waiting to see what I could do." From there, she won a silver medal at the World University Games, and earlier this year, blitzed the Olympic trials - a meet she rates as the best competition of her career.
Every swim was a personal best - a knack she repeated at the world short-course championships in Manchester straight afterwards. "This time, every time I jumped in the pool, I swam faster. It was crazy, even a 13-year-old is lucky if they can do that - it's basically unheard of," she says. "Age has something to do with it too - I've started to hold my strength and get more power.
Sometimes you have to be patient and wait for your body to adapt." Her strategy is to keep speeding and whiz up through the world rankings. Going into the Olympics, she sits at 14th in the 200m back; the world's fastest woman, Zimbabwean Kirsty Coventry set the world record this year at 2m 6.39s.
The New Zealand team's build-up has been nothing short of ferocious. Since last August, they've faced a wall of training - their biggest break just four days off in April, to recover from jetlag. Ingram credits her support network - physio and massage therapists, personal trainers, doctors and coaches - for getting her through the year without injury, and her family for understanding. They're accustomed to it: Ingram's brother, Blake, has represented New Zealand in waterpolo, surf lifesaving and kayaking.
Ingram holds in her head what she wants to achieve in Beijing, but she plans to keep it in her head. "Let's just say I'm not going for the experience - I've seen that happen before. Making the team was just the first step - the main step is performing once you're there."
At 15 she had to decide whether to pursue a professional dance career or be a swimmer. "The choice was simple: I wanted to go to the Olympics." And she's on her way - quickly.
