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kindergarten classes. The arrange-
ment came in handy whenHoff
started winning state titles
by age 10—the same year
she announced she wanted
to go to the Olympic Games.
In 2003, when Hoff was 14, her
family moved from Virginia to
Towson, Md., so she could train with
Ye er at theNorthBaltimoreAquaticClub.
Ye er had never seen an athletewith so
much grit. Shewas a coach’s dream, study-
ing the workouts and asking how fast she
should swimeach split. Hoff swamall four
strokes flawlessly—freestyle, backstroke,
bu erflyandbreaststroke—makingher an
ideal candidate for the individual medley.
“She doesn’t have a weakness,” Ye er says.
Back then, to call Hoff type-A would
have been an understatement. “At 14, Katie
would press her goggles into her face 100
times tomake sure they didn’t leak,” Ye er
says. “She did it 98 times more than every
other kid.” If she did 14 pull-ups instead of
the required 15, she would feel guilty, her
mother says. Evenher arrival time for 7 a.m.
practices turned into a competition. Ye er
liked to get to the pool at 6:45 a.m., before
his swimmers. Then Hoff started coming
in at 6:40, pushing the coach’s arrival back
to 6:35. When she started showing up at
6:30, Ye er realized where this was going.
“OK, youwin,” he thought. Andwin she did.
That is, until she didn’t.
AFTERHER2009COLLAPSE,
Hoffdid some
soul-searching and decided to continue
swimming—not just to compete, but
also to change her city, her coach and her
a itude. In short, everything. She moved
to California to train with a group of elite
female swimmers at Fullerton Aquatics
Sports Team. Outside the pool she made
friends at ChapmanUniversity, where she
studied public relations. Best of all, she
loosened up. She learned to laugh, even as
she pushed herself to shave fractions of a
second off her times. “I am definitely not
as OCD as I used to be,” she says. “I calmed
down as I got older.”
The changes paid off in late 2010, when
Hoff took first place in the 400-meter
freestyle at the World Swimming Cham-
pionships in Dubai. Yet she still wasn’t
where she needed to be in order to make
one last push for a third Olympic Games.
So shemoved toFlorida at thebeginningof
this year to train again with Coach Ye er.
Today the 22-year-oldHoffhas the same
fire as the 14-year-oldversionof herself, but
is more fun-loving, a trait Ye er believes
will help her be er handle the excruciat-
ing pressure of the Olympic Games. Her
mother agrees: “She is trying to enjoy the
process more. She has had real highs and
incredible lows, but hopefully she’s now
more in the middle.”
And as she prepares for theU.S. Olympic
Team swim trials in Omaha next month,
Hoff is beginning to showher oldwinning
form. “To be honest, I’mnot there yet,” she
says, taking a breather between training
sessions inNaples this January. “But I think
I’m on the verge of a breakthrough.”
Hemispheres
contributor
CRISTINA
ROUVALIS
, a writer based in Pittsburgh,
sinks like a stone.
Ye er had never seen an athlete with so
much grit. Hoff at 14 was a coach’s dream.
“She doesn’t have a weakness,” he says.
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