BYU swimmer targets Hong Kong Olympic team

Rachel Grant has a dream of swimming in the 2012 Olympic Games — for Hong Kong.

__IMAGE1__Yes,

the BYU swimmer was born of a Chinese mother and an American father in

Hong Kong. Though she only lived there for a short while after her

birth, she has dual passports and dual citizenship, leaving her fully

credited to swim for the team from her other country.

Of

course, before she decides if she has enough oomph left to train for a

year on her own for the next Olympics, Grant is happily training and

competing in the water for the BYU Cougars.

Her specialties are the butterfly and the individual medley, and she says midrange distances are her forte.

She

has plenty of victories this year for the Cougars and has been named

Mountain West Conference swimmer of the week twice. She was the only

Cougar to qualify last season for the NCAA nationals as a sophomore,

and she hopes to peak at the right time to yet again find herself

swimming in the national championships.

She'd

rather have members of her team there with her though, and the team is

working hard to peak for the Mountain West Conference championships in

three weeks.

\"We try to peak for

conference, we wear our fast suits and go for the national cuts then,\"

said Grant, who, along with her teammates, practices about 20 hours a

week, leaving her muscles feeling like putty much of the time. And

every time the group leaves the pool they run right to food after

discussing cravings throughout practice.