Jordan Wilimovsky Rio Olympics swimming preview

As we kick off August, attention inevitably turns toward football season. But every four years, we also get the treat of the Summer Olympics: the best athletes in the world competing for glory on the grandest stage in sports. And this year, Northwestern’s Jordan Wilimovsky will have a fantastic chance to achieve that glory in the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Olympics kick off on Friday, Aug. 5, with Opening Ceremonies, and the action gets underway the next day.

Wilimovsky, our 2015 Student-Athlete of the Year, is scheduled to swim in two events over the course of four days, with the first one being the 1500 meters preliminary heats on Friday, Aug. 12. Wilimovsky qualified for the 1500 by taking second at U.S. Olympic trials behind Connor Jaeger about a month ago. If he advances past preliminaries—he’ll need one of the top eight times to do so—the final is Aug. 13.

On Tuesday, Aug. 16., the final day of swimming race events in Rio, Wilimovsky will make history by becoming the first U.S. Olympian to swim both in the pool and in open water. He’ll swim in the grueling 10k, a race that takes about two hours. He qualified for the event last summer, winning the World Championship in Kazan. Wilimovsky is the odds-on favorite in the race. He talked about his preparation and Olympic schedule with SwimSwam.

We’ll be providing full coverage of Wilimovsky in Rio, including How to Watch posts the morning of his every race, live updates during his races and results as soon as he finishes.