Elizabeth Fleming has won the high-point trophy four straight
years at the CVAL Short Course Championships
Somewhat surprisingly, Elizabeth Fleming can’t recall the first
time she went swimming or how her passion in the pool suddenly
developed.
Those details are kind of murky.
Elizabeth Fleming has won the high-point trophy four straight years at the CVAL Short Course Championships
Somewhat surprisingly, Elizabeth Fleming can’t recall the first time she went swimming or how her passion in the pool suddenly developed.
Those details are kind of murky.
“But she’s always been natural in the water,” said Fleming’s father, Peter. “When we had the pool put in [the backyard,] she would dive in and pick quarters up from the bottom.”
Asked Elizabeth, who was not able to recall her quarter-diving adventures, “Did I get to keep them?”
Although her initial remembrances surrounding swimming may come second hand, Fleming’s first accomplishments in the pool can be recalled almost as easily as her most recent accolades, not that she would forget. She has practically every swimming medal and trophy displayed somewhere in her Hollister bedroom, including a makeshift bulletin board of first- and second-place medals and ribbons that hangs noticeably crooked by a single nail, perhaps due to the sheer weight of winning.
With a little help from her father, Fleming said, “If you see it, you’ll be it. But you have to take action to achieve it.”
Fleming has a way of turning action into accolades, first-place times into record-setting performances, despite her swimming career being just four years old. Having first earned high-point honors at the Coast Valley Aquatics League Short Course Championships when she was 4, Fleming has since earned the top award four years running, with her most recent high-point trophy coming last weekend at the Morgan Hill Sports Complex.
“It was kind of hard because I was 4,” said the 8-year-old Fleming, who now competes for the Monterey Bay Swim Club. “It’s easier now, more experience.”
An incoming third-grader at Southside, Fleming’s latest high-point championship included first-place finishes in six different events at the 8U division – the most events a single competitor is allowed – including the 25 free (15.94), the 25 fly (18.04), the 25 breast (21.40), the 50 free (35.02), the 100 IM (1:30.47) and the 200 free (2:46.01) – the latter time a record-setting performance by the most comfortable of margins.
Her coach at the MBSC, Martine Armstrong, who leads a group of swimmers 8- to 13-years-old, says Fleming is outstanding in the pool and brings a great work ethic to practice.
“There were only two swimmers in the meet that won all six events they swam in … and Elizabeth was one of them,” said Armstrong, adding that Fleming single-handedly contributed a whopping 120 points to the team. “She’s the youngest one in the group and she’s the best girl I have. She swims with girls 10-, 11-, 12- and 13-years-old and she fits in and keeps up.
“You couldn’t tell by the way she swims that she’s the youngest girl.”
And Fleming couldn’t really tell what exactly she was accomplishing during her 200-meter freestyle event.
“People just kind of screamed,” Fleming said. “It was hard to hear.”
It didn’t take a lot of time for Fleming to figure out what she had accomplished following the completion of the 200 free event. Turning around, glancing at the leaderboard, Fleming discovered she not only broke the three year old record, she completely shattered it.
“We were joking how she completely annihilated the record,” Armstrong said. “That is pretty unheard of, for her to break a record by that much.”
Clocking a 2:46.01, Fleming’s time bested the previous record by more than 23 seconds, a time of 3:09.21 that was set by MBSCs Mary Mayone in 2007.
“I was just thinking about beating the record,” Fleming said. “I was thinking in my head that if I was gonna beat the record, I had to kick faster and pull my arms faster.”
The 200 free event was actually a race of mixed emotions, Fleming said. Although she set a new CVAL record in the event and took first overall among other swimmers in the 8U division, her 2:46.01 was only good enough for 12th place.
In her heat, that is.
Fleming had to race against swimmers in the 10U division – she actually posted a better time than 14 other swimmers in the 10U division. But the higher level of competition may have proved to be the difference to her record-breaking race.
“It did help,” Fleming said. “They were faster than me, but I pushed myself a little bit trying to keep up with them.”
Competing in volleyball, soccer and basketball as well, Fleming is also active in gymnastics with the MBSC. She swims four times a week – roughly six hours – with her club at Monterey Peninsula College, and runs 10 miles a week as part of the program’s practice regimen.
Yes, 10 miles a week. Said Armstrong, “She’s an 8-year-old and is able to run 10 miles a week. That’s unheard of. She’s just a really good athlete.”
Surprisingly, although Fleming may be all business when it comes to practice, she reserves her home pool not for additional training, but strictly for fun.
And if she’s ever looking to relive memories or recall how it all started, she can always dive for quarters.
