We sat down with newly minted Olympian Arno Kamminga, who was kind enough to talk with us after his qualification meet. Arno spoke candidly about experiencing loss, starting with losing his mother at the tender age of 15. Arno used swimming as a way to cope with the loss, but also started getting more serious about it. He then failed to qualify for any international meet, try as he may, be it Jr or Sr, until the 2017 World Championships.
Arno also gives an interesting bit of trivia in the middle of the interview: he never gets into the pool before he races. The physical warm-up that he takes himself through is solely on land. I'm flabbergasted at this and ask him no less than 10 questions about how he came to develop this system.
Music: Otis McDonald
www.otismacmusic.com