Young Swimmers didn't get the memo that they will be swimming slower in textile suits!

This is just one swimmer, he mentions more. From Chris DeSantis at SwimmingWorld TV:

Dagny Knutson- New HS records in the 200 IM and 100 free

Dagny is guilty of a lot of things besides breaking high school records. Among the charges you could level against her:

1. Forgetting that North Dakota is not allowed to produce world class swimmers

2. Swimming high school and actually cheering for her teammates and caring about their state championship

3. Bouncing back from a disappointing summer and not burning out.

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The kids have inherited, or taken the sport back. It is all about age groupers now. These records may now be the "swan song" of any swimmer over the age of 24-years-old

Dagny Knutson in 'USA Today!'

Dagny Knutson's enthusiasm explains why every four years a kid comes out of nowhere and beats the unbeatable veteran or beaks the unbreakable record. For the kid, it's a quest; for the veteran it is a day job.

From USA Today:

When the Majettes had their streak of 15 straight West Region titles snapped by Williston last weekend, Knutson showed just how important by addressing her teammates.

"I told them we've got to make sure that we work together, whether it's swimming or just cheering each other on," Knutson said. "We have to make sure we do the little things, like cooling down after races, because it helps you recover better.

"We had people getting dressed and going in the stands before the meet was over," she said. "We need to be together as a team."

[...]

The Majettes have won the last six state championships, and Knutson would very much like to finish her high school career by extending that streak to seven.

"I really want to end my high school career on a good note, and I really want to perform well," Knutson said.

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Now try and remember what Michael Phelps and Ian Thorpe were like at 17-years-old. They were not rich, they had not climbed their personal "Mount Everests" and they couldn't wait to get back into the pool.

Now contrast all of the above to Dara Torres. Dara already had the money, the fame and celebrity status. She is winning because she, like 17-year-old Dagny Knutson, is on a quest and not a grind. Swimming is not a day job for Dara or Dagny.

Torres has recently subjected herself to a severely painful surgery so she could still compete and any meet she swims in, she is there to win. For, Dagny, every meet is an opportunity and that includes a high school meet in a town we have never heard of against a competitor she can lap. Dagny made it an opportunity to set a record or two and made it a point to inspire her teammates.

In the twilight of their careers, Thorpe and perhaps Phelps have lost the enthusiasm that Dagny and Dara still have. When Phelps says he is not in the greatest shape coming into these FINA World Cup events, perhaps swimming is becoming more of a day job with a final curtain just meters away in 2012?

The 'Washington Post' calls Dagny Knutson: The Dakota Pool Shark

Dagny Knutson was invisible to me six months ago. I had never heard of her and now she is the USOC's springtime ingenue.

The USOC is funding both her training and swim meet expenses and she will be traveling in the ensuing months to various Grand Prix meets so we will have more opportunities to see her swim.

She lives in North Dakota and faces tremendous adversity just getting to the pool in the morning and that is not hyperbole. When it's 14-degrees below zero and you got to go outside to get to the pool, that's not weather, that's a crisis!

From the Washington Post:

"...Knutson (pronounced Kah-NUTE-son), 17, won seven gold medals in January during the Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Guam, where she swam the 200-meter individual medley in a time (2 minutes 10.79 seconds) that would have earned her fifth place at the Beijing Olympics. Her times in the 200 freestyle (1:57.73) and 400 individual medley (4:40.10) would have ranked her seventh and eighth, respectively.

A month earlier at the U.S. national short-course championships in Atlanta, she beat Olympic star Katie Hoff's one-year-old American record in the 400-yard individual medley by .04 of a second with a time of 4:00.62. A month before that, Knutson, a junior at Minot High, broke three national high school records, including one set in 1988 by Janet Evans.

"I didn't see this coming," Knutson said. "I've been really focused, really just working hard to reach the goals I have in mind."

In January, the U.S. Olympic Committee awarded Knutson funding it usually reserves for members of national teams...."

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