Teen swimmer Kayla Han makes national waves with Paris 2024 on horizon
The girl in a plain blue swimsuit and white swim cap just kept going. Looping overhead stroke after looping overhead stroke, Kayla Han's arms propelled the 13-year-old forward despite the burn building in her lungs and shoulders. A socially distant, limited-capacity crowd cheered. Han knew she was catching up.
"Here she comes!" two-time Olympic medalist Elizabeth Beisel exclaimed on the NBC feed as Han inched ahead.
Han hasn't stopped charging up the swimming ranks since her breakthrough performance at the Olympic Trials, where her epic comeback in the last 15 meters of the Wave I 400-meter individual medley B final earned more than 1.2 million views on YouTube. It was the most-watched clip of the 2021 Olympic trials and Han's unofficial coming-out party.
Since touching the wall in 4:51.08 at the Olympic trials, swim blogs have tracked her times at every meet. Local media outlets descended on her home pool in La Mirada, located on the edge of a water park with water slides towering on the other side of the pool deck. Public address announcers rarely miss a chance to announce Han's credentials: the youngest Olympic trials qualifier last year and multiple national
