Ress finds his way after missed Olympics chance

Junior Eric Ress said he will never forget what happened on March 23, 2012.

It was a life-altering moment — something that fundamentally challenged his life-long dedication to the sport of swimming.

On that day, Ress swam in the 200-meter backstroke finals at the Elite French Championships, the qualifying meet for the 2012 Olympics. He was swimming in lane five next to Benjamin Stasiulis, a medalist at the 2010 European Aquatics Championships in the same event.

The two were expected to finish atop the standings and earn a fast enough time to clinch a spot on the French Olympic team. After Ress had spent months of training with his teammates at IU for this exact moment, it was his time to shine.

The result went according to plan for Stasiulis — he swam a 1:56.39 to break the national record. When Ress touched the wall, he was the second to do so. All he needed to see when he looked up at the scoreboard was a time of 1:58.48, and he had qualified for the Olympics. He had done it plenty of times before.

It read 1:58.78.

From that moment, Ress’ entire swimming career had changed.

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For those who may not know him, Ress is a fifth-year junior on IU’s swimming and diving team. He redshirted the 2009-10 season after tearing his ACL in September 2009 and then was granted an Olympic redshirt in the 2011-12 season.

In the April after his first redshirt — what would have been his sophomore year of eligibility — Ress won the 2010 French national championship in the 200-meter backstroke with a time of 1:58.54. He finished eighth in the 2010 European Aquatic Championships.

Only one year later at the 2011 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships, he ended his sophomore season as the runner-up in both the 100-yard and 200-yard backstroke events.

Then came a decision that Ress dreaded. As it turned out, the 2012 NCAA Championships coincided with the 2012 Elite French Championships, the qualifying event for the Olympics. Ress would have to choose to participate in either one or the other.

Upon deciding to come to IU in the fall of 2008, Ress had made an agreement with his coaches that, no matter what, the ultimate goal would be for him to end up in the Olympics.

However, Ress did not want to miss out on the collegiate season. He said he felt like he would be letting the entire team down had he chosen to take the season off to focus on long-course training instead of the collegiate short-course model.

“But it was the opposite,” Ress said. “I’ve never seen a group of guys so supportive. They wanted to see me be at the best level of swimming I can be at.”

With the help of his coaches, Ress made the decision to take the 2011-12 season off as he trained for his Olympics opportunity. He trained alongside his teammates, but he was not going to meets with them anymore.

When Ress competed in France, his teammates were halfway across the globe in Federal Way, Wash., helping IU to its best finish at the NCAA Championships since 2008.

“Seeing that kind of thing really justified my decision,” Ress said. “I didn’t get to swim, but at the same time, it’s helped me because the level of competition is so much better this year.”

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After Ress finished his swim in the 200-meter backstroke at the Elite French Championships, his first reaction was to look up at the scoreboard. He had broken the required time in practice and twice in similar events.

That day in March wasn’t one of them. All that time. All that effort. And Ress was .3 seconds short.

“My biggest thing was that I was going to keep my composure,” Ress said. “I was going to not let everyone see how upset I was.”

When he got out of the pool, the media had already focused in on Stasiulis, the new French record-holder. When Ress passed by, one journalist managed to ask him how he was feeling. He responded in the only way he said was possible: “I’m sorry, I really don’t have anything to say right now. I need to go have time to myself.”

By the time Ress had finally reached his family, his mother was in tears and his father and sister were both visibly shaken. Then-IU teammate Margaux Farrell, who was also swimming in the meet, and her mother were also by his side. The two families had been close since both Ress and Farrell were in middle school.

“It was really devastating, and it was sad for all of us,” Farrell said. “I remember crying, his sister cried, our parents cried. You come so close to something like that, and it was a weird position to be in.”

In the days and weeks following the result, Ress said he didn’t have that burning desire to swim. He had qualified for the 2012 European Aquatics Championships, but instead he wanted to take the rest of the spring to focus on school and go from there step-by-step.

However, after talking with his father, Colin, a former IU swimmer and Olympian himself, he said he came to an understanding that this result was not the “be all, end all.”

He had seen other swimmers at the Elite French Championships fall short, and he had seen them get really upset. He realized that how he would bounce back from this disappointment would be the ultimate test as to what kind of swimmer he really was.

“In life, you’re dealt a hand, and you have to play it regardless,” Ress said. “It’s not like I could have asked for a do-over. It’s all about facing adversity.

“This is going to sound really cliché, but it’s like the phoenix rising from the ashes. You have to come back hungry.”

Ress did just that. Though he did not make it out of the semi-finals at the European Championships in May, he finished third at the 2012 U.S. Open at the IU Natatorium in Indianapolis in August.

His time of 1:58.42 in the finals would have qualified him for the 2012 Olympics had he raced that in France.

“It validated that what I was doing here was working,” Ress said. “If I focus less on what everyone else is doing around me and worry about my own race and getting to the wall faster, good things will happen.”

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Ress returned to the collegiate swimming ranks on Oct. 19, 2012, in a dual meet against Kentucky and Tennessee. He won three of the four events in which he swam, including both the 100- and 200-yard backstrokes.

But at the Big Ten Championships only a month ago, Ress lost the 100-yard backstroke final to teammate junior James Wells and then fell .24 seconds short to Wisconsin’s Andrew Teduits in the 200-yard backstroke. He did not win a single event.

Starting today, Ress will swim in the 2013 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships. They will be held in the same facility in which he finished third at the U.S. Open — the IU Natatorium.

Though Ress said he feels more physically and mentally ready for this meet than he has been in the past two years, IU Coach Ray Looze said he hopes Ress is “flying under the radar” to the rest of the competition.

“Maybe these people are writing him off, and I hope they do,” Looze said. “Because if they do, he’s a lion waiting in the weeds. And that’s a dangerous thing to be.”

There is no doubt that Ress is a different swimmer than what he used to be. No longer is he aiming for a certain time, but instead he is shooting for a title.

This season and next season will not be the last for Ress, either. Call it a dream deferred, but he said he has already made it clear that swimming in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro is his goal. He has Looze’s full support.

Though so much has happened in his life over the past two years, one thing is known: The complete story of Ress’ swimming career has yet to be told.

“Not making the team makes me hungry for it,” Ress said. “It also gave me a reality check, though, because if I had put all of my eggs into one basket, then if you have failure, it’s going to be tough.

“But if you prepare for other venues and other goals of yours, if you fall short in one aspect, you’re still going to achieve something down the line.”