Home Sports Kayla Han, 13, Becomes Youngest Olympic Trials Qualifier, Breaks National Age Group Record

Sports

Kayla Han, 13, Becomes Youngest Olympic Trials Qualifier, Breaks National Age Group Record

June 25, 2021

American swimmer Kayla Han of Brea, Calif., became one of the youngest people to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Swimming after making the cut at 12 years old.

It all happened so fast: Han, who is now 13, qualified for the Wave I of the Olympic Trials after finishing with a time of 4:50.70 in the 400-meter individual medley (IM) at the Speedo Grand Challenge in May, according to Swimming World Magazine.

In addition to qualifying at the trials, the swimmer, who was 12 at the time, also broke the National Age Group record held by Elizabeth Beisel in the 11-12 category for 400M IM. Beisel set the record at 4:55.35 in 2005.
Han flew to Omaha, Neb., for her Olympic Trials debut on June 2, days after her birthday.
The achievement made her the youngest of the 1,400 qualifiers at the trials, WOWT reported.
Kathy Hall, Han’s coach from five years ago at La Mirada Armada, came to help prepare the swimmer in Omaha.

Amazing comeback: Han stunned everyone after winning the B final of the women’s 400-meter IM, finishing in 4:51.08.

ICYMI: Han’s last 50m was absolutely WILD! 💪🔥 pic.twitter.com/jCBik0bnfZ
— USA Swimming (@USASwimming) June 7, 2021

Featured Image via WOWT (left), NBC Sports (right)

Support our Journalism with a Contribution

Many people might not know this, but despite our large and loyal following which we are immensely grateful for, NextShark is still a small bootstrapped startup that runs on no outside funding or loans.

Everything you see today is built on the backs of warriors who have sacrificed opportunities to help give Asians all over the world a bigger voice.

However, we still face many trials and tribulations in our industry, from figuring out the most sustainable business model for independent media companies to facing the current COVID-19 pandemic decimating advertising revenues across the board.

We hope you consider making a contribution so we can continue to provide you with quality content that informs, educates and inspires the Asian community. Even a $1 contribution goes a long way. Thank you for everyone’s support. We love you all and can’t appreciate you guys enough.

Support NextShark