STILL WORTH WATCHING : Five Years Later, These Athletes Are Fulfilling Their Early Promise : Cathy Carone

Carone got a late start in swimming, at 9, but earned attention at 13 after winning four events in the Junior Olympics while competing for the Mission Viejo Nadadores. Fourteen months later, she leapfrogged an entire division, going from age-group swimming to qualifying for Senior Nationals.

It was a blessing and a curse.

“I was moved away from my friends, moved up to the older [Senior National] age group when I was 14, and I was swimming with 17- and 18-year-olds, and it was hard for me to adjust,” Carone said. “Because I grew up with the people that were in the Junior National group, it was hard to leave them and make new friends when they were so much older than I was.”

Carone always felt like the outsider alongside the older kids. Still, she worked hard every day, but it exacted a toll. She burned out.

At 17, she didn’t make the Senior National cut. And, after winning the Southern Section championship in the 100-yard butterfly her junior year at Capistrano Valley, she finished fifth as a senior.

“I was always under pressure to train hard, work out and be the best,” Carone said, “but I never discussed it with anyone because it was something I had done most of my life and I knew I had to keep doing it. Inside, I knew I wasn’t liking it, but I knew it would pay off. And it did.”

She earned a scholarship to Pepperdine. She has won about 70% of her dual-meet races, and Coach Tim Elson calls Carone one of the favorites in all her events at the upcoming West Coast Conference championships.

She will compete in three relays and the 100-yard butterfly, 100 and 200 backstroke, and 200 individual medley.

But the depression that followed her workouts her senior year has vanished amid new surroundings. “I’ve had ups and downs all through swimming--you can’t always have the good attitude and be the totally motivated swimmer because it’s such a hard sport,” Carone said.