Jake Mitchell, above, second from left, won gold in the 800m free relay along with Jake Magahey, Luca Urlando and Carson Foster at the 2019 FINA World Junior Championships.

Four years ago, as a soon-to-be high school freshman, Jake Mitchell watched the 2016 Olympic Trials from the stands – cheering on his older Carmel (Ind.) Swim Club teammates who were competing.

This year, as a soon-to-be college freshman at the University of Michigan, he was slated to compete in his first Trials as a contender to make the Olympic team headed to Tokyo.

Now, with Trials and the Olympics postponed until 2021, Mitchell has regrouped and refocused now that he’s back in the water, training and planning for next summer when he should be an even stronger, faster competitor after a year working with caoch Mike Bottom in Ann Arbor.

‘Four years ago, I was not very close to any Olympic Trials standards, but seeing the athletes get selected for the 2016 team was a huge motivator,” said Mitchell, a member of the U.S. National Team who plans to study biology on the pre-med track at Michigan.

“I specifically remember talking to my friend after the first night of finals and telling him, ‘I have to be here in 4 years.’ I've been holding onto that feeling of excitement ever since, and it has without a doubt helped me get to the spot I'm in right now.”

Mitchell’s swim journey started when he was 6 years old with a local summer league team. He joined because his older sister was already on the team.

Coming from a swimming family – his dad and sister both swam through high school – Mitchell said he ultimately chose swimming from a wide range of competitive sports interests that included basketball, baseball, soccer, cross country and track, along with swimming.

It was in the 8^th grade that he chose to focus on swimming – giving up basketball and running because he knew that he could not commit to all three sports, and he wanted to continue to improve in swimming.

Even now, Mitchell said he loves the sport as much as when he started more than 10 years ago and that his favorite part is and always has been competing.

“Getting to race your teammates and people from all over is such a fun part of the sport, and it's when you get to see all of your hard work pay off,” he said.

Over the past year or so, Mitchell has been taking the necessary, incremental steps to prepare himself for the spectacle and magnitude of Trials.

Last year, he finished second in the 400 free and fifth in the 1500 free, along with strong swims in the 200 free and 400 individual medley at 2019 Phillips 66 USA Swimming National Championships.

A few weeks later Mitchell competed at Junior World Championships in Budapest (his first international team and trip), and while he didn’t medal in any of his individual events, he won a gold medal as a member of the 800 freestyle relay team. 

When Trials roll around next summer, he said he realizes there’s a huge difference between being a spectator and now being a top contender – and he knows these recent meets have set him up for future success.

“I am most excited for the energy that the meet (Trials) and the venue have,” he said. “Going to Trials four years ago to watch was such an incredible experience, and I am looking forward to actually competing this time around. From Junior Nationals to Nationals to Junior Worlds (last) summer, I have learned a lot that will help me when I get to Trials.

“For example, at Junior Worlds, the swimmers had to be in the ready room 20 minutes prior to their heat, which I was not used to. The atmosphere in the arena at Junior Worlds was unlike any meet I had ever competed in. It reminded me of Omaha in 2016, so I am happy that I got to experience that atmosphere before I compete next summer.”

Mitchell added that it was a “crazy, fun” experience being able to represent the United States in another country at a meet and win a medal.

He swam the 400, 800, and 1500 individually, and the 800 free in both prelims and finals. And while his individual events did not go as well as he had hoped – he placed outside the podium in all three – however, he gained a lot of experience with nerves and new situations that the meet provided him.

“The relay was easily my favorite race; it was an unreal feeling to walk out with three of my teammates by my side and hear Team USA in the stands chanting USA-USA, and top it off with a gold medal, breaking the World Junior Record that had been taken from the USA two years before,” he said.

Mitchell added that while the conclusion of his senior year was interrupted by the pandemic, he was able to complete his high school swim season before the shutdown.

He said while his final year didn’t happen as he would have liked, his school did a “great job” finding ways that he and his classmates could still have some usual end-of-year activities – including a virtual prom and a drive-by graduation that made the quarantine life “a little bit easier as we had some things to look forward to.”

He spent the majority of his quarantine trying to stay as busy as he could – taking up running, biking, online workouts, trying to teach himself Spanish, painting and even piano/guitar.

“I was able to swim a little bit towards the end of the quarantine in one of my teammate’s backyard pools, which is about 17 yards,” he said. “We were finally able to swim with our team again starting June 1st.

Now, with a competition-free summer, Mitchell said he is looking forward to starting his freshman year in Ann Arbor, where he is headed in late August.

He said Michigan's plan is to have everyone back on campus at the start of the semester with classes larger than 45 students being held virtually and those less than 45 will be either a mix of in-person and virtual instruction or simply socially distanced.  

In his mind, he’s focused on the advantage he sees from working with Bottom and his staff to get him that much closer to realizing his Olympic dream – one he’s had since he watched Michael Phelps at the 2008 Olympics.

“I'm excited to train with a new team and set new goals,” he said. “The Michigan men's team and coaches have such a strong culture of excellence that reminded me of my club team now, and I could not be more excited to be a part of it. I'm also excited to live in a new city and meet tons of new people.

“I do think that having the Olympics delayed will benefit me. I always see practices as opportunities to get better, so having an extra year to train and prepare for Trials is definitely beneficial. I think I will need to get stronger, continue to learn and improve on the technical aspects of my swimming, and have fun. Having fun is probably the most important because it is going to keep me excited and happy rather than stressed and upset leading up to the Olympic Trials.”