James Wells, 29, and Olivia Harper, 19, at the Bath Area Family YMCA before practicing with the Long Reach Swim Club in May. Wells and Harper will be competing in the 100-meter backstroke at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Omaha, Nebraska, on Friday. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

BATH — Bathed in the bright lights of the pool deck inside the Bath Area Family YMCA, James Wells laughed at the version of himself that had returned to Maine three years earlier.

That version was 50 pounds overweight, could not do a single pull-up and had barely touched chlorinated water in 18 months. After the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials, the Phippsburg native wanted nothing to do with competitive swimming.

“I was in a bad place mentally,” he said. “I didn’t like working out, didn’t like anything to do with it. Instead of trying to deal with it, I just shut it all out.”

And yet on Friday, Wells will be in Omaha, Nebraska, for his third go at the Olympic Trials. At 29, he’s the oldest of the 60 men (and boys as young as 16) who qualified for Wave I of the 100-meter backstroke.

Joining Wells in Omaha will be a pair of Maine teenagers making their debuts at the trials. Olivia Harper, 19, of Woolwich is a Long Reach Swim Club teammate of Wells who also will be swimming the 100 backstroke. Emily Ecker, 18, of Cape Elizabeth will compete in the 400 freestyle.

Preliminaries and finals of the 100 backstroke are scheduled for Friday morning and evening. The 400 freestyle races are scheduled for Sunday.

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In order to address safety concerns regarding the coronavirus pandemic, USA Swimming split the trials into two separate meets to avoid crowded pool decks. Wave I is a four-day meet that starts Friday and sends the top two finishers in each event to the Wave II meet the following week.

Approximately 40 swimmers in each event can skip this weekend’s meet, having qualified directly into Wave II, which runs from June 13-20. Harry Homans, who led Cape Elizabeth to the 2015 Class B state title as a high school freshman before moving out of state, will swim in three Wave II events: the 100 and 200 butterfly and 200 backstroke.

The Olympic team will be selected based on Wave II results.

Both Harper and Ecker recently completed their first year of college, Harper at the University of Tennessee and Ecker at the University of Wisconsin. Homans spent one year at the University of Georgia before transferring to the University of Southern California.

The window for achieving an Olympic Trials qualifying time opened in November 2018 and closed on Sunday. Ecker, a member of the Portland Porpoise Swim Club, made it with two days to spare, posting a time of 4 minutes, 15.41 seconds in the Wisconsin Time Trial Qualifier meet a week ago in Madison. That time ranks ninth among the 20 women in Wave I who beat the 400 freestyle standard of 4:16.89.

Emily Ecker, shown competing for Cape Elizabeth High at the 2017 Class B state championships, will compete in the 400 freestyle at the U.S Olympic Trials. Kevin Bennett photo

 

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Harper made the Olympic Trials cut two years ago, well before graduating from Morse High. At the 2019 Summer Nationals, she swam 1:02.66 and slipped under the barrier by three hundredths of a second. She said her main goal Friday is to get racing experience at such a high-level meet.

“I talked with my coaches in Tennessee and my coaches here,” she said, “and it’s really just trying to stay focused and stick to a plan and work on my mental strength as well.”

Harper took all her classes online but was able to live in a dorm in Tennessee with three roommates, all swimmers from different areas of the country.

“We immediately became very close,” she said. “It was a lot easier for us to cope with being homesick and figuring out how to handle our freshman year of college together.”

Harper is seeded 40th among the 47 women and girls (including three 14-year-olds) scheduled to compete in the 100 backstroke in Wave I. A dozen women in Wave II have broken a minute, including top-seeded Regan Smith, a 19-year-old from Minnesota who set a world record of 57.57 and also holds world marks in the 200 back and as part of the 400 medley relay.

Wells is a 2010 graduate of Morse High who continued his swimming career at Indiana University. He placed 63rd at the 2012 Olympic Trials with a 100 backstroke time of 57.33 seconds. In 2016, having turned professional for a team based in New York City, he swam 55.8 seconds in a 100 back prelim but failed to advance to the semifinals, tying for 27th in a field of 185.

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Retiring from the sport, he moved to Washington D.C., for a job involving cybersecurity. It paid well but came with a lot of stress. When he wasn’t working, Wells found himself playing video games and eating takeout. Eventually, he reached out to his old coaches back in Maine, Jay Morissette and Brian “Sponge” Savage.

“He was like, ‘I’m going to die if I don’t make some life changes,’” Morissette said. “He had put on a lot of weight. He was really idle. But he felt he had more in the tank. He was interested in making a run at 2020.”

So Wells quit his job and returned to Maine early in 2018. He signed on with Bath Iron Works in electrical design, upgrading Navy ships. And he returned to the pool.

“There was a lot of stuff I had to work though and it was very tough getting back into it,” Wells said, “but the more I got in shape, the old me came back. I became much more aggressive in my competition mentality.”

Morissette said Wells lost part of his identity when the 2016 trials ended. He had been James Wells, the swimmer. Now, having gained some perspective, he is James Wells, who swims.

“He understands that regardless of the outcome, he still has a million other thing that he wants to do in his life and he can close this chapter with no regrets,” Morissette said. “Having that peace of mind will serve him well.”

The path to an Olympic berth for Wells is unrealistic. Seeded 13th in the Wave I 100 back at 56.03 seconds, he would have to place among the top eight in his preliminary race, then top two in the finals to reach a Wave II meet that already had 70 swimmers with times faster than his best. Against them, he would need to place among the top 16 in prelims, top eight in the semifinals and top two in the finals.

So if there’s no realistic chance of making the team, why go to the trials?

“It’s just super fun to compete against those guys and race at that level,” Wells said. “Just to be a part of that is awesome.”


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