‘He’s hungry for more’: LSU swimmer from Dunwoody qualifies for Tokyo Olympics

Whether he was swimming laps as a child or competing at the collegiate level, Brooks Curry said he’s always striving to go faster.

He began swimming early, when he was about 4 years old, while growing up in Dunwoody. For nearly a decade, he trained at the Dynamo Swim Club in nearby Chamblee, where his coach said he separated himself from the crowd.

“It was easy to take notice of this tall, lanky kid who loved to race,” Ian Murray, head coach with Dynamo, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday. “Maybe he didn’t know what was going on too much in the training pool quite yet, but he had a lot of ability and a lot of natural speed, so I always kind of kept an eye on him.”

Curry’s training paid off earlier this month in Omaha, Nebraska, where he qualified to don the red, white and blue and compete for Team USA in the Tokyo Olympics. The 20-year-old sophomore at Louisiana State University is currently training in Hawaii with his fellow Olympians, preparing to compete in the 4X100 freestyle relay July 25.

His mother, Amy Curry, won’t be able to travel to watch her son swim on the world’s largest stage due to COVID-19 precautions, which only allow Japanese residents to attend events. But despite a 13-hour time difference and an ocean between them, she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that nothing will stop her, his family and his friends from cheering him on from Georgia.

Credit: Amy Curry

Credit: Amy Curry

Murray will also be watching, since Dynamo has four swimmers who qualified for the Olympic and Paralympic games. He said Brooks Curry’s ambitions won’t stop at just qualifying for the games.

“He’s achieved this goal, and he’s hungry for more,” Murray said.

Making history as a Tiger

Curry told the AJC in an email that he swam year-round with Dynamo while attending Rivers Academy, a private school in Alpharetta founded to help kids pursue sports and extracurricular activities at elite levels.

Murray, who joined Dynamo in 2017, met Curry when he was in high school. Two years later, Curry competed in the Speedo Junior National Championships, which further fueled his competitive spirit.

Curry came away with a bronze metal in the 50-meter freestyle and was part of Dynamo’s 4X100 medley relay team, which won gold. Murray said that was the moment he knew Curry’s raw talent and enthusiasm should carry over to college.

“We were basically begging colleges to take a chance on him because we could see where his improvement curve was,” Murray said. “He was flying under the radar so much that a lot of schools didn’t take a chance on him. But we’re grateful LSU did, and he’s gone there and clearly flourished.”

Credit: Amy Curry / Jack Spitser

Credit: Amy Curry / Jack Spitser

Curry was the 100-yard freestyle champion in the Southeastern Conference and was named SEC Freshman of the Year in 2020. Murray remembers a conversation he had with the young athlete about a week after he became one of the SEC’s top swimmers.

“You just inserted yourself in a very different conversation,” Murray said, referencing the Olympics. Curry responded, “Oh wow, that’s really cool. Let’s go. Let’s do it.’”

On June 17 at the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials, he place fourth in the 100-meter freestyle final with a time of 48.19 seconds, becoming the first American swimmer in LSU history to qualify for Team USA.

“This is the most difficult team to make in all of sports, hands down, history shows this,” LSU associate head coach Steve Mellor said in a news release. “The work that has gone on behind the scenes for this to happen took a village and Brooks is a product of a man that believed he could shock the world. Tonight he shocked the world.”

‘The future is big’

He will be among several swimmers with Georgia ties to compete in Tokyo. Chase Kalisz and Nic Fink, both University of Georgia alumni, will be on the men’s team alongside Andrew Wilson, an Emory University graduate. Olivia Smoliga and Hali Ficklinger are UGA graduates who will compete on the women’s team.

Curry will join fellow Dynamo alumni Jay Litherland and Gunnar Bentz, both UGA graduates, on Team USA. Gia Pergolini, a 17-year-old Dynamo swimmer from Roswell who has Stargardt’s disease, also qualified for the 2021 Paralympics in Tokyo.

Murray said there isn’t a single common factor between the four Dynamo athletes that makes them compete at an Olympics-caliber level.

“They just have this quality that makes them stand out,” Murray said. “... I think Brooks’ quality was that he’s never not believing in himself. He’s never paying attention to other people who aren’t believing in him.”

Dynamo, which has operated in metro Atlanta for more than five decades, typically doesn’t have this many Olympic athletes. The first time Dynamo swimmers qualified was in 1996, when the Olympics were held in Atlanta. Litherland and Bentz also competed in the 2016 Olympics in Rio, giving Brooks new goals to strive for.

“I think that’s part of what made it possible for Brooks is that he’s seen people he knew, former teammates, go ahead and do the things that he was hoping to do,” Murray said.

He predicts Brooks will elevate his performance to new heights in Tokyo, given the support he’ll receive from Team USA trainers and his fellow Olympians.

“The future is big,” Murray said. “To be honest, I could see him going substantially faster on the relay in Tokyo than what he went individually at the (qualifying) trials in Omaha just because he’s going to get tremendous coaching over the next month with the Olympic staff and the people that are around him. He’ll thrive in that environment.”

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