INDIANAPOLIS
One minute, 11.26 seconds. Here and gone in a flash.
But it’s a moment in time that will stick with Kabria Chapman forever.
The 2021 Franklin graduate, who has spent the last three years competing at Indiana University, lived out a swimmer’s dream on Sunday morning when she competed in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Chapman’s 1:11.26 in the 100-meter breaststroke preliminaries wasn’t fast enough to advance her into the evening semifinals; she finished 64th in the 78-swimmer field after coming into the day seeded 66th with her qualifying time of 1:10.11.
While she didn’t swim a best time, she was still pretty content with her performance.
“I definitely felt really good my first 50,” Chapman said. “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, am I even going to feel this race at all?’ But it caught up to me in the end. … I would have loved to go faster, but you take what you can get. It was fun.”
The loudest 100 breast cheers on Sunday morning were reserved for Chapman’s IU teammate, 2016 gold medalist Lilly King, and Gabrielle Rose, the oldest swimmer in the trials at age 46, after she won her heat with a 1:08.43 and earned a spot in the semis. But Chapman certainly had plenty of supporters among the 17,697 fans in attendance — the largest crowd ever for a preliminary session — even if she couldn’t necessarily see them all there.
“I was trying to find where my parents were, but no chance,” she said. “Too many lights. But it’s fun to hear maybe a little bit of your name, or ‘go IU.’”
These trials have delivered fireworks from the outset, with the University of Virginia’s Gretchen Walsh setting a world record during the 100-meter butterfly semifinal on Saturday night. Getting a chance to be so close to swimming history as it happens, Chapman says, has been a thrill.
“Oh my gosh. I was tearing up, and I don’t even know her,” she said of Walsh. “It’s awesome.”
Chapman came back Sunday night to cheer for King and some of her other Hoosier teammates who qualified for finals and semifinals.
After the trials end, Chapman will spend the rest of the summer interning with a local auditing firm while she finishes up her final undergraduate course in accounting. She’ll stay in Bloomington to take graduate classes in 2024-25 while using up her last year of collegiate swimming eligibility.
Chapman’s Olympic trials experience, however brief, will stick with her long after her competitive career comes to an end.
“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, especially for me,” she said. “Literally just going to a school that’s good at breaststroke just to try and get better, and I ended up here.”
