Nick Tan: Boys' Swimmer of the Year

The third time was the charm for Tan, who, after qualifying for the state meet as a sophomore and junior, accomplished his high school goal of making it to the second day of the state meet his senior year, which was the icing on the cake that saw Tan earn the Daily Journal’s Boys’ Swimmer of the Year honors.

“The past two years (at state), I’ve only climbed (the times list) a little bit, but not quite getting into the top-20,” said Tan, a 200-yard individual medley swimmer. “This year, I stood a fairly good chance of getting there. I asked my dad, ‘So, are we going to get a place to stay?’ And he’s like, ‘Well, we’ll see.’

“He wasn’t quite expecting it. (After qualifying) I went up to my dad and said I needed to find a hotel.”

Tan’s team should have known he would make it to Saturday’s swim finals based on the record-setting year Tan had. It started with his club training at Burlingame Aquatic Center and culminated in the spring with a new Peninsula Athletic League 200 IM and 100 breaststroke record, an eighth-place finish in the 200 IM at CCS in which all eight swimmers qualified for the state meet, and culminated as the 14th-best 200 IM in the state.

“We knew the state meet was a possibility,” Vitalie said. “All of the pieces just kind of fell together.”

The 200 IM is kind of the decathlon of the swim world. Needing be good in all four swim strokes — freestyle, backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke — the 200 IM really highlights a swimmer’s versatility. It also means that a proficient high school IMer will fill in at a lot of spots during the high school season. Tan was no different, as Vitalie would move him into different races depending on the matchup of a given dual meet.

But Tan continued to have a core of races and, in addition to the 200 IM, he became the Colts’ go-to breaststroker this season, almost by default.

“This year, since we were missing a breaststroke guy, I said, ‘OK, I’ll do breast,’” Tan said. “My breast used to be a strong point and then I kind of plateaued. For a couple years, it hadn’t been improving as much while my other strokes were getting better.”

It wasn’t as if Tan simply closed his eyes and threw a dart at the board to decide between breast and backstroke. His club training in the breaststroke showed that he had finally broken through that plateau and he started seeing his times drop quite dramatically. In March, he swam a junior-national qualifying time in the 200 breast so he decided to stick with it during the PAL season.

After helping guide El Camino to a 6-1 record and second-place finish in the PAL Ocean Division standings, Tan dominated the Ocean Division championships, claiming four first-place finishes and set two new PAL records.

The PAL holds separate division championships for their swimmers — Bay and Ocean. An athlete can set a division record that is not necessarily an overall PAL record and to see record-setting performances come out of the Ocean Division is a rare occurrence, making Tan’s two new PAL records even more noticeable.

He first set a new overall PAL 200 IM record during his qualifying heat, swimming a 1:54.18 to top the previous time of 1:54.25.

The record stunned Tan. Not because he didn’t expect to set the new record, but he did so without even really trying to do it.

“That shook me quite a bit,” Tan said. “I was wearing a normal practice suit.”

Tan was really ready to go fast in the 200 IM finals and he obliterated the field and broke his own record, covering the distance in 1:52.95.

He later added the 100 breast title in a new record time of 58.75, topping the previous time of 59.56.

“Usually in the past, the trend was I usually do better at CCS than at PALs. I was definitely aiming for [the PAL records] and hoping I would get it,” Tan said. “I’m quite honored to be up there, to represent my school and teammates on that (PAL record) list. Being on that record sheet has been a goal for a while. Putting my name on that board is an honor.”

He added two more win in a pair of relays to give him a ton of confidence moving on to CCS. Tan pushed his 200 IM time even lower in CCS qualifying, finishing with the sixth-fastest time of 1:51.71 to move into the championship race where he finished eighth with a time of 1:52.22, qualifying for state and becoming the first Colt to advance to the final day of the high school swim season.

“I’ve been to a good amount of national-level meets before, but … representing my own high school, rather than my club team, was a good experience,” Tan said. “It was neat to hear ‘El Camino High School’ (at the state meet).”