Matt Hutchins came 8,500 miles to UW to chase a dream, and on Thursday evening that dream came true. After two dominant 400-meter freestyle swims at the Canadian Olympic Trials in Toronto, the junior swimmer will travel to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this summer to represent his native New Zealand in the Summer Olympics.
Due to the NCAA Championships, Hutchins and other New Zealanders attending college in the US were unable to compete in their home country’s trials. To remedy this issue, New Zealand and Canada’s national swimming governing bodies came to the decision that Canadian Trials would be the qualifying event for those US-based New Zealanders.
Hutchins, the reigning Big Ten Swimmer of the Year, posted the fastest time of anyone in preliminaries, clocking in at 3 minutes, 49.84 seconds. That time was almost a second faster than the FINA ‘A’ auto-qualification time. Later Thursday, Hutchins swam a 3:50.12 in the final, which was also under the ‘A’ standard.
He also competed in the 200-meter freestyle, where he placed fourth among non-Canadian athletes with a time of 1:50.84. He still has one race left in Toronto, the 1500-meter freestyle, which will be swum on Saturday and Sunday. It is likely that Hutchins will swim the longer-distance race in Brazil as well, as he is very close to that ‘A’ standard.
Hutchins will be the first Wisconsin swimmer to compete at the Olympics since Carly Piper and Adam Mania in 2004.
