AggieYell.com - Larson's road to London

August 10, 2012

Breeja Larson
Special to AggieYell.com

(NOTE: Texas A&M sophomore Breeja Larson won the Gold medal in the 100 meter breaststroke and made the U.S. Olympic Team at the U.S. Olympic Trials. She competed in the 2012 Olympics in London individually in the 100 meter breaststroke and won a gold medal as part of the 4x100 medley relay. She is sharing her experiences from the Olympics with Aggieyell.com.)

Making the Olympic Team at trials was a dream come true, and having my fellow teammate Cammile Adams make it as well I felt like I was on cloud nine forever. All the hard work that I've put in and all the the help and support from my boyfriend, Taylor Devereux, was worth it.

I still feel like I have to pinch myself everyday to make sure it's true. And when I found out that my A&M coach, Steve Bultman, was selected to be one of the assistant coaches that's when everything seemed like it was too good to be true! After trials we had our first practice as a team and that was amazing! Swimming with these National Swim Heroes and talking about everyday things was something I only dreamed about.

Then they sent us home to College Station for a couple days and I got to see my swim team and my boyfriend again for awhile and that was really nice to have. Then we flew to Knoxville, Tennessee for a week or so. The hotel food was absolutely amazing! And training with fellow Olympians never got old. It was really nice to have Steve there to train me because I was used to his workouts and I feel that was a really big advantage.

One of my favorite parts about the Knoxville trip was getting to know the other Olympians on a deeper level and the friendships just kept growing as we flew to Vichy, France for our second training trip. And while we were there the big thing was to make the Call Me Maybe Video, which was a blast! We got to see a lot of people come out of their shell and be part of this group bonding experience that Kathleen Hersey thought of. France was beautiful and the people were lovely (and everyone was so thin!) Trying to eat out was an experience! I remember we had to make animal noises to better communicate what meat we wanted, that was funny.

Once we were ready to go to London everyone started getting really excited, so when we landed in England and finally got into the Olympic Village everyone was about ready to jump out of their skin -- well, at least I was. We got settled in and got to look through all the stuff we got. We got a lot of stuff, I've never owned so much stuff in such a small span of time. I still feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

When we first walked into the pool deck and see how breathtakingly beautiful it was I knew it was time for business. I felt such an overwhelming sense of pride for my country and my team. I am on Team USA! It never gets old. I love representing my country.

FEATURED PRODUCT