Going for the gold in the swim competition this summer for Team USA on the U.S. National Olympic Team is a dream Reese Branzell, 21, has had since he was a kid.
However, it won’t be his first time going for gold.
As a senior at the Score Academy in Boca Raton, in 2021 Branzell won gold for the 100-yard freestyle event at the Next College Student Athlete (NCSA) National Swimming Championships in Orlando and is a three-time Florida State Champion.
In his hometown of Manalapan, Branzell’s parents put him in swim class when he was only 14 months old. Taking to the water, he began swimming competitively in Pompano’s Santa Claus Swim Meet when he was 4. By the age of 7, he qualified for the Junior Olympics and has been qualifying ever since.
He attended Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, where he studied film and media, and graduated from Score Academy. Part of the Saint Andrews Aquatics club at Saint Andrews School in Boca Raton, Branzell swam with distinction under the direction of assistant swim coach Ramon Walton.
“Some of Reese’s times were so fast, they shocked me,” remembers Walton.
Walton himself was a youth swimmer who swam for Jamaica at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and who later broke two school records at the University of Kentucky. “Reese is a phenomenal athlete,” says Walton. “He’s dedicated, focused, driven and has a strong belief in himself. I don’t have to encourage him too much; he comes to it naturally. … As an athlete, Reese is great at tapping into ‘the flow’ when he needs to. I have the utmost confidence in his abilities and believe he can take it all the way.”
Now a junior at the University of Georgia (UGA), Branzell swims on its swim team and is currently training for the summer Paris Olympics, where he hopes to be one of six in the country to qualify for the Olympic team. In June he will travel to Indianapolis for the U.S. Masters Swimming Spring National Championships at Lucas Oil Stadium, which will determine whether he makes the cut for the team.
“This is a long-term dream of mine,” says Branzell. “I’m in striking range but know I need to keep my training regimen up.”
And train he does—up to 20 hours each week—many days twice a day, plus weight training at the gym and practicing on Saturday and Sunday mornings in addition to his full academic course load in sports management. At school, he’s on an athlete-specific meal plan, where he stocks up on lots of protein and carbohydrates.
“I burn so much energy during practice,” the 6’-3” and 185-pound athlete says. “It’s important to maintain a proper nutritional balance.” Most mornings he cooks his own breakfast of eggs, toast, bacon and fruit, and coffee only when needed.
Seeing Michael Phelps take home eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics was an inspiration for Branzell. “Watching Michael swim made me realize I wanted to do that,” he says. “I was a 5-year-old with some serious hopes and ambition.”
Branzell says the pressure can be intense, but he does well under pressure. He gets nervous, but “it’s no big deal.” If he needs to, he avails himself of the mental health and performance department at UGA, where he can meet with a sports psychologist, free to all student athletes. And he meditates and visualizes race rehearsals in his head.
“I spend time going over how I want my race to go, how I want it to look, how fast I want to go and envision everything beforehand in my mind,” he says. Once he has a plan, Branzell sticks to it, alleviating fear of the unknown.
What advice does Branzell have for other aspiring Olympic medalists? He credits his own “stick-to-itiveness.”
“Stick with it,” he says. “Everybody has potential. It can be difficult and tempting to quit because of the over-the-top demands of the sport. But if you like it, don’t give up. You never know how far you can take something.
“I didn’t know I’d get this close and achieve this much,” he says about his many swim accomplishments. “It’s all about perseverance, working hard and following your dreams.”
This article is from the May/June 2024 issue of Boca magazine. For more like this, click here to subscribe to the magazine.
