As one of the top swimming organizations in the country, the Santa Maria Swim Club has produced many a scholarship athlete over the years; none, however, have reached such lofty heights as 18-year-old Josh Prenot.
Capping off a career full of accolades and world travels, Prenot will be training 30 hours a week for the biggest meet of his life, the 2012 Olympic Team Trials. He’s qualified for the 200 butterfly, 200 individual medley (IM), and the 400 IM, his strongest event.
“Being able to represent your country is the greatest honor you can have in a sport, and I’ve gotten to do that twice over the last seven months,” Prenot said. “I’m going to have to step it up and move beyond that on the National A Team, which is going to be a big step up for me.”
It’s been an exciting year for Prenot. Last December, he was the 18U national champion in the 800 butterfly. Over the summer, he graduated from Family Partnership Charter School and went to the USA Nationals, where he made the finals in the 400 IM. Then, in August, he qualified for the World Junior Championships in Peru, where he finished fourth in the 400 IM. His time of 4:18 would’ve ranked him sixth at the last Olympic Trials, in 2008.
The times convinced his coaches the Olympics were a distinct possibility for Prenot, so they decided to take the next step and put all their attention on training him full time for the 2012 Trials.
With Prenot’s academic future sewn up, he can now concentrate wholly on that goal. On Nov. 16, after considering offers from Georgia, USC, and Texas, he signed a letter of intent with UC Berkeley, last year’s NCAA swimming national champions. Prenot will be majoring in physics, and he expects a smooth transition to college life.
“I love the school, love the coaches, and love the team,” he said. “I just thought it was a great fit for me. It’s going to be a fun four years there, and I hope we can win some more national championships.”
Prenot’s head coach, Mike Ashmore, said he and the other coaches are happy the search for a school is over.
“It was kind of a whirlwind,” Ashmore said. “Every coach in the country was coming down to the pool deck, so it was a lot of excitement and craziness that took away from training.”
Prenot has until July to get himself ready for the trials, where he’ll need to finish in the top two to make the Olympic team. To do so, he’s going to have to slay one—or both—of the sport’s two giants: Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte.
“With names like [Tyler] Clary, Lochte, and Phelps in my events, no one expects me to make the Olympic team,” Prenot said. “I don’t even really expect me to make the Olympic team. I’m just going to go out there, finish the race as fast as I can, and if I make the team, great. If I don’t, then we move forward to 2016.”
Ashmore acknowledged that his young pupil will be an underdog going up against seasoned veterans in their prime, but if Prenot races to the best of his ability, he could surprise some people.
“It’s a pressure cooker,” Ashmore said. “But certainly we think he’s at least enough of a player that he’s going to be in the race, and that if the opportunity comes up, he needs to be ready to go.”
With just more than 200 days left to prepare, Prenot will be in the Paul Nelson pool six days a week, practicing mornings and afternoons and spending a lot of time in the weight room, which he’s never done before.
“With that and school and traveling to meets, it’s pretty intense,” he said. “When you’re pursing high goals with your friends like this, it’s really a great environment to be a part of. It’s not only more fun, and workouts are a lot less boring and painful, but it brings us together as a group.”
Ashmore said adding weight training this year has instantly given Prenot more strength. The coaches are looking for ways to improve on each stroke to get Prenot to a 4:12 time in the IM.
In his 13 years at SMSC, Ashmore said Prenot is the first he’s had at this level. He remembers Prenot as a young kid with high goals, a good stroke technique, and a lot of desire.
“He came to me when he was 11 and said, ‘What do I have to do to be in the right spot?’” Ashmore said. “When an athlete comes to you at 11 and says that, the first thing is [to say] ‘Do you understand what you’re talking about here, because this is not just a run-of-the-mill goal. This is something that’s really big,’ and he understood.”
Ashmore said Prenot, unlike most teenagers, focused singularly on his goal and stuck to it. He praised the swimmer for his work ethic and called him mentally one of the toughest athletes he’s ever had.
Born in Missouri into a military family, Prenot moved around all over the country as a child, eventually landing in Santa Maria in 2003. With a love of being around the water, he started swimming at the age of 8 and also played baseball as a pitcher.
“I was making time standards for some pretty good meets, some sectional level championships when I was 13, so I had to decide between baseball and swimming,” Prenot recalled. “In swimming, I wanted to really be the best athlete I could be, so that’s the choice it came down to for me. It was tough to decide, but I think I made the right choice.”
As of press time, Prenot was getting ready to head to Atlanta for the U.S. National Championships, which conclude Dec. 3. He’ll use the experience as a benchmark for where he needs to be by July.
Even if he doesn’t make the team this year, in four years Prenot will be 22, a prime age for his events. No matter what happens, Prenot said he would carry forward fond memories of his time with the club.
“SMSC has meant a lot to me; we’re really a close family here,” he said. “I like to hope that someday one of these little guys swimming over there is going to make a USA team, like I’ve been a part of, or making the Olympic team, which I haven’t done yet. It would be awesome to see.”
Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas is ready for the summer games. Contact him at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 1-8, 2011.