Courtesy of Madison DeJong
From the age of seven, my passion has been competitive swimming. I have always loved the water, and there is nothing that can compare with the thrill of racing and knowing that all of my hard work just paid off. As a young swimmer, breaststroke was my favorite stroke, and I was good at it.
Nearly every year, I was an individual qualifier at the state age group meet. Swimming for a small club team, reaching the state meet was one of our primary goals each season. Swimming is primarily an individual sport, but relays are one opportunity to work as a team. To qualify a relay for state, someone must qualify individually in the age group. Because our team was small, it was always up to me to get a qualifying time so that we could have relays at state. That is until I hit puberty and my body changed. The stroke that had always been so natural became painful. So much so that I could not train any serious amount of breaststroke for about two years. This was especially hard since one of my teammates began to get a lot faster than I was. I had always been faster than she was, so when I saw her times beat mine in my favorite race, it was very hard to be supportive of my teammate.
How can I be a good teammate when I don’t want my teammate to succeed if that means she is better than I am? I really struggled with this until I was talking to my mom, and she helped me understand that being competitive doesn’t make me a bad teammate. I want my teammates to do well; I just want to do better. This mindset allows me to be happy for my friends when they do well, even if they do better than I do. Their success just means that I have to work harder if I want to beat them.
Not only did I have to change my mental state, I had to focus on other things because I could no longer swim breaststroke. I started working on my butterfly -historically my worst stroke- and turned it into my best stroke. I have been a state qualifier in the butterfly events for the past three years. Without my teammates pushing me, and my body forcing me to have to work on other strokes, I would never have been as fast as I am today. Obstacles can create successes because they give no choice but to maneuver and adapt around them. Now when I race my friend, it is healthy competition. We push each other to do better, and we are both better racers because of it. When she wins, I am disappointed that I did not win, but I am happy for her success. I know that I will work harder the next day in practice so that the next time I will win.
About Madison DeJong 
Madison DeJong is a seventeen-year-old swimmer from Minnesota. She is a senior at Mayo High School and swims for Rochester Swim Club. She enjoys swimming, reading and spending time with friends and family.
Thanks for sharing, great story !