Courtesy: Rutgers Athletics
“As a kid, all I liked to do was sit and color,” she laughed. “My mom wanted me to be a little more active than that, so I tried pretty much every single sport on the planet and I hated every single one of them until I tried swimming. My mom knew that I loved the water because as a baby I would get it in the pool, and I would not come up for air. I would just cry when I came up because I wanted to be under the water the whole time.”
Salladin swam in a few zone races when she was younger when a coach noticed she had a cut that could send her to nationals.
“It was 2016 where I did my first national 5K,” she remembered. “After that I thought, ‘okay, I kind of like this.’ It was a very different experience because I got roughhoused for the first lap and I was super confused because I’ve never done anything like that before. But after that, I did a lot better than I thought and told myself I might as well just keep doing it. It’s fun.”
Unlike trying to beat the clock when racing in the pool, open water swimmers are racing against their fellow competitors in ever-changing outside conditions.
“Open water is a lot longer,” Salladin explained. “The longest race in college is the 1650, while the longest in open water is a 25K. There’s a lot more roughhousing. It’s kind of every man for himself, almost like a full-contact sport. And yeah, you’ve got to be pretty aggressive.”
Along with the fun, Salladin’s times kept improving. Then came one cut in particular that led to the Yorba Linda, California native landing a spot on the Open Water National Team. With the top six qualifying for the national team, Salladin’s time of 2:06:47.58 made her the fourth-fastest American at the 2017 Open Water Nationals at Lake Castaic in California and earned her a coveted spot on the team.
“It was never really on my radar,” she mentioned. “I went into the meet thinking ‘haha, maybe I can make the national team’. There was a meeting before the event about how to qualify for various teams, but I left it early because I was thinking that I don’t need to know this. It was a far-fetched dream that ended in surprising myself.”
Success in open water continued. As a member of the USA World Open Water Championship Team competing in Budapest in 2017, Salladin placed 10th in the 25K open water race.
However, after her 25K that July, Salladin noticed something was off. Shortly after the race, she jumped into the water to train and noticed her left arm would not pull any water. Still, she pressed on and continued to train in looking to re-qualify for the national team.
Unfortunately, the lingering issue left her off the national team the following year.
Salladin sought treatment and saw medical professionals in trying to find an answer – altogether a two-year saga that resulted in shoulder surgery.
“I was eight months out of the water,” she recalled. “The biggest thing that kept me going was that I love swimming. I literally love being in the water. I love training hard. I knew that I didn’t want to be done.”
And now, Salladin is ready for a comeback. She takes her first steps in looking to qualify again for national team status on Saturday, October 17 at Lake Las Vegas in Hendersonville, Nevada.
“I want to try to stay in the front pack,” she said of the race. “It’ll be my first 10K since 2018, so I’m going into it as open-minded as possible.”
Her comeback will also continue in the pool as a Scarlet Knight after transferring from Alabama.
“Originally, I was looking to go closer to home,” she explained about her arrival “On The Banks”. “But the first time I talked with (Rutgers head coach) Jon Maccoll, I think we talked for over an hour. I was blown away by how supportive he was. He wanted me to put my open water swimming first and make getting back on the national team a top priority. Obviously, pool swimming is important too, but he was really passionate about helping me get those personal goals of mine and willing to train me in a way that would suit me. I felt really good about that and I ended up committing very shortly after that.”
“Cat coming to Rutgers aligns with what our vision is for the program,” said Maccoll, who enters his fourth year as head coach of the Rutgers women’s swimming team. “We are cultivating an Olympic breeding ground, where swimmers and divers can come from all over the world and train for the Olympics while receiving a world class education. We embrace the challenge of helping them achieve on the world stage in the pool and in the board room.”
“I went on my trip and I met the team and saw how much of a family they are and how supportive of one another. They seem like a very well rounded team and well-balanced with school, social lives, faith and other important stuff outside the pool. I felt like it was a good fit.”
Salladin will be on the starting block for Rutgers in the distance events and work towards a degree in social work with the chance to earn a master’s with her remaining eligibility.
“Over the course of the rest of my college career I would like to final at Big Ten’s and hopefully make NCAA’s,” she said of her goals in the pool as a Scarlet Knight.
But first things first and that’s getting in the water on for the West Coast Open Water Championship on Saturday, Oct. 17.
