NMMI Sports Press
First-year cadet Danilo Brito capped off his first swim season at NMMI with two bronze medals at the NMAA State Swimming and Diving Championships in Albuquerque on Saturday.
During preliminary races on Friday, Brito qualified third in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 22 seconds, then shaved .36 seconds off that time in the finals Saturday with a 21.74.
In the 100-yard freestyle, Brito finished fifth in prelims with a 48.48 second run, then swam more than a second faster in the finals to move up two spots and capture another bronze.
Brito also swam anchor for NMMI’s 200-yard freestyle relay team consisting of Santiago Camou, Jonah Pinon and John Sandoval.
Senior Mary Kathryn Olvera finished off her high school swimming career with a seventh place showing in the 100-yard freestyle and 15th in the 50-yard free.
Olvera made the 50-yard finals field with a 15th place finish among 33 swimmers in the prelims, then held that position in the finals. Her prelim time of 26.05 further cemented her school record that she set at the district meet two weeks ago.
Olvera also set a new NMMI record in the 500-yard freestyle at the district meet with a time of 5:56.82.
She qualified eighth in the 100-yard prelims, then shaved 1.64 seconds off her time to move up a spot and finished seventh in the finals with a time of 56.73 seconds.
Winning a bronze medal in the 1980 Olympics helped Jan Olesinski find his way to America and eventually Roswell and NMMI, where he has coached numerous sports for almost 40 years.
He’s coached state champions, Olympians and athletes from all over the world. Only at a place like NMMI does a teenager from Brazil and an Olympian from Poland win hardware together.