Molly Hannis heads to Rio Olympics with guts, resilience

Molly Hannis might have pulled the greatest audible in the entire Olympic swimming trials.

Trailing as she headed into the last turn of the 200-meter breaststroke final last month in Omaha, Nebraska, Hannis made a mid-race decision to forgo the standard underwater pull down stroke and instead launched to the surface at full steam and began her assault on the leaders.

She had tried the move in the semifinals, but there could hardly have been a more pressure-packed moment to pull it off again, with most of the eyes of the swimming world watching.

Gutsy is how her Santa Rosa Neptunes coach Dan Greaves described it.

The result? Hannis, a Santa Rosa High grad, launched from the wall, ripped through the final 50 meters - overcoming a considerable deficit - and finished second, earning her spot on the U.S. Olympic squad.

“It’s a tribute to her practicing and also her instincts because she came off that wall, she sensed that it was going to be faster,” said Bret Lungaard, an assistant coach at the University of Tennessee, Hannis’ alma mater, and now her personal coach.

Risky maybe; faster for sure.

The pace at which Hannis raced the final 50 meters of the July 1 final left NBC analyst and legendary swimmer Rowdy Gaines nearly breathless.

“Don’t take your eyes off her,” he said as he circled Hannis on the telestrator as she gained on the leaders.

And then, “Watch … watch … watch Hannis. Watch Hannis.”

Hannis’ finish left Gaines at a loss for words.

It also put Hannis on her first Olympic team. She will race in Rio on Aug. 10.

In additional to grabbing her spot in unusual fashion, she also grabbed it in an event that wasn’t necessarily expected. Hannis, 24, entered the trials ranked No. 8 in the 200-meter breaststroke but No. 3 in the 100-meter race.

Only the top two finishers were picked to travel to Rio, but Hannis has been on such a time-dropping tear that her backers felt a top two finish in the 100 was well within her reach.

But on the day of the 100-meter final, Greaves watched her from the stands and saw that she was racing tight.

“There is a look to someone who is trying too hard. There is a look to someone who is really fluid,” he said. Hannis was trying too hard and she finished third. The difference between her finish and qualifying for the Olympics was less than six-tenths of a second.

Adding to the disappointment, according to Lungaard, was the feeling that had Hannis swum within herself in the 100 meters, he believes she could have doubled at Rio.

Hannis, known for her ability to turn on tremendous speed, might have turned on the jets too soon, too hard, at the turn when she was trailing some of the leaders.

“She went to force and went to effort and it got her away from her touch with the water,” he said. “I’m not sure if it was a 10 out of 10 on the panic scale, but it was a lot. But she had plenty of space. She could have run them down.”

Yet by the time Greaves made his way down to Hannis poolside, she was over it and ready to tackle the 200.

“I talked to her about 20 minutes after her 100 breast and she said, ‘I’m doing a little better now.’ And right away she said, ‘I’ve got another shot.’?”

That is the Hannis that Santa Rosa High cross country coach Doug Courtemarche remembers. Hannis ran for the Panthers - she posted the 23rd fastest SRHS time ever for the Spring Lake course - for three seasons before focusing solely on swimming her senior year.

“She was extremely hard on herself,” Courtemarche said. “If she had a race that wasn’t quite up to her standards, she didn’t throw any kind of attitude, but she would just kind of internalize it and make sure it didn’t happen again.”

Fast-forward to Omaha, where Hannis had to do much the same thing to double down on the 200-meter race.

Lungaard said Hannis is not a woe-is-me kind of athlete. She was more ticked off that she let a great chance get away.

But more than her swimming, Lungaard was struck by her resilience.

“She didn’t need as much sulking time, as much pity time, as I would have,” he said. “She used that night really well.”

Her ability to bounce back and then make a mid-race adjustment that would send her to Rio speaks to not only Hannis’ athleticism but her understanding of her own gifts.

She’s a 14-time All-American and an NCAA champ two times over in the 200-meter medley and 400-meter medley squads. She finished second in the 200-meter breaststroke at the 2015 U.S. Nationals and 11th at the 100-meter breaststroke.

Hannis owns the University of Tennessee records in both the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke, but she saved a personal best for an opportune moment.

And it’s at the shorter distance - the one in which she failed to qualify for the Olympic Games - that Lungaard believes Hannis has the tools to become the best in the world.

“Absolutely,” he said. “She’s not done. She has dropped a lot of time this year.”

So there is some irony that it’s in the 200 that Hannis will try to make her Olympic mark.

“I think she has probably as much, if not more, room to improve in that single event than any single American does in their event,” he said.

Lungaard’s prediction for Rio?

“She goes to that meet and continues to drop (time) and show the rest of the country that the Olympics are a big deal but are not something that is too big for her,” he said.