Tom Melgar

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  • Current Age Group: 60-64
  • Team you are a part of:  KalamaZOOMasters (ZOOM)
  • When did you start competitively swimming? at 14.  I nearly drown at 12 when my older brother and I fell down a frozen bank into a narrow channel with steep banks in February wearing winter clothes and boots,  I did not know how to swim but quickly watched my brother swim about 50 yards across the pond and did that.  After walking a mile and a half showing up at home soaking wet my parents enrolled my in swim lessons.  At the end of this process I tried out for the high school swim team.  I made the team as one of 4 people on the bubble for the one remaining spot.  I stuck it out and got the spot.  By senior year I was MVP and state qualifier.
  • How long have you been in Michigan Masters?  Since 1996
  • What is your favorite swim event/race?  50 free.  Its explosive, fast, powerful, precise and fun.  I’m still chasing my college times
  • So far, what was your favorite Masters Swim Meet?  My first meet was USMS long course Masters nationals in 1996 at Ann Arbor.  Lots of great competition.  Another swimmer was injured and had to drop out of the A relay.  Skip Thompson subbed me in on this hot relay that broke the world record but we came in second by a little bit so we didn’t even get the American record.
  • What is your favorite set?  Most recently was from one of our new, younger coaches was unsure of what to expect from Masters swimmers and wrote this set 4x 100 on 1:15, 2x 200 on 2:30, 1 x 400 on 5:00.  It would have been nothing in college but now it was a challenge but felt great to make it.  I felt powerful all day after that.
  • What is something you need to improve or constantly working on in the pool?  Technique and endurance.  I am stronger now than at any point in my life but my technique has fallen off.  I really need to use some underwater videos.  I also need to improve flexibility.
  • What are your big swim goal(s)?   Win masters nationals.  My best chance is in 50 breaststroke but there are still a few guys my age that are doing 26 for 50 breast which is currently way out of my league.
  • Favorite swim Olympian?  I like Jason Lezak.  I had a chance to swim against him in exhibition…it wasn’t close.  I loved that Gary Hall Jr made fun of him calling him nothing more than a relay swimmer.  But what a relay swimmer he was putting up the most amazing comeback in swimming history.  Gary who???
  • What do you like to do outside the pool? Time with family. My wife and I love to travel, learning languages and culure.  I am a physician in internal medicine and pediatrics and do lots of global health work.  Most recently we lead teams working in remote areas of the Amazon and the Philippines but have worked in more than 15 countries and travelled to more than 50.  Wherever we go I try to make sure we have access to a place to swim.  In the Amazon there is strong motivation to keep up the pace.  Last year we found a nice 100 meter pool in the middle of nowhere in Sri Lanka.