Tokyo Olympics: Japanese American swimmer wins silver in 1,500 meter race

NBC

Erica Sullivan, left, celebrates with teammate and gold medalist Katie Ledecky.

Usually, all the media's attention is on the gold medal winner, but Erica Sullivan grabbed some of the spotlight after coming in second in the inaugural women's 1,500m freestyle.

Sullivan's Silver Medal finish Wednesday was a surprise and the first person to congratulate the Japanese American was celebrated teammate Katie Ledecky, who finished four seconds ahead of Sullivan.

In the press conference following the race, Sullivan's told the journalists, that she was the "epitome of an American person.

“I’m multicultural. I’m queer. I’m a lot of minorities. That’s what America is,” said the Las Vegas resident. “That’s what America is. To me, America is not about being a majority. It’s about having your own start. The American Dream is coming to a country to establish what you want to do with your life.”

She responded to the Japanese reporters in fluent Japanese, the result of many trips to Japan with her mother,, Maco, who watched her daughter's moment from her Las Vegas home with Erica's younger sister, Nina. Her grandfather, Sullivan said, helped design some of the Olympic facilities.

"It's surprising and it's really cool that everything just happened to line up and work out," Sullivan said on NBC's Today show. "My mom would've loved to be here, but she's at home in Vegas cheering us on."

“Just me getting to be on the podium, in Japan, as an Asian American woman and getting to take silver in a historical women’s event for the first time, as someone who likes women and who identifies as gay — it’s so cool,” she said, via the Post. “It’s awesome.”

After qualifying for the Olympics, she said about Japan, “It’s literally my second home and I love it there. I found that in recent years I tend to identify with my Japanese side more than with my American side.”

Sullivan told Swimming World Magazine, “It wasn’t until I got out of high school and I really started to crave my Asian heritage and culture, and I really honed into it. “Luckily I found a community through anime watchers, and I found my own little network that I grew to love.”

To achieve her Olympic dream, Sullivan, 20, had to overcome anxiety, panic attacks, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in the past few years after her father's death in 2017.

“I’m proud of the mental health barriers that I got through, with my dad dying in 2017 and really hitting a rock bottom in 2018 from the stress of losing a parent at age 16 and having to get over the anxiety, the panic attacks, the depression, the PTSD, all that,” Sullivan told Swimming World Magazine. “I’m so happy that I was able to overcome those.”

"The last five years, I've had a lot of struggles, and I think everyone knows that. It's pretty much (an) open book now," she said in the press conference. "But it feels good to have it all finally pay off, and I really hope I can be like a beacon of hope to anyone who's struggling with mental health or coming out or any minority that they are, to show that there's hope, and honestly me getting to do it here, where half my family is from, means the world."

2021 OLYMPICS: Nathan Adrian won't be going to Tokyo but 3 AAPI swimmers make the team

Torri Huske has a chance to win mulitple medas at the Olympics.

The United States is sending one of its youngest swimming teams to the Tokyo Olympics later this month. The three Asian Americans on the U.S. team are all under 20.

As the youthful swimmers will be heading to the Olympics for the first time, one of the veteran swimmers, popular Nathan Adrian, 32, who has been to four Olympics, won't be making the trip, failing to qualify in his events, the 100m and 50m freestyle. This will be the first time since 2004 that Adrian will be absent from the U.S. Olympic team.

Torri Huske, 18, missed her high school graduation to compete at trials this June. But it was worth it with a chance to win multiple medals later this month.

The Chinese American Arlington, Virginia resident and Yorktown High School senior had just won the finals of the women’s 100-meter butterfly at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials with a time of 55.66 seconds, breaking her own American record set a day earlier.

She will also be competing in the 50-, 100- and 200-meter freestyle races at the Olympic trials this week, as well as the 200-meter individual medley, according to the Washington Post.

The Stanford-bound Huske is one of several first-time Olympians who benefited from the postponed Olympic Games. A pair of Las Vegas-based teens will also be heading to Tokyo.

Erica Sullivan will swim the 1,500 meter freestyle at the Olympics.

Japanese American Erica Sullivan made her mark in the 1,500 freestyle at trials, staying with Katie Ledecky for the first half of the race, then touching the wall in second place just over 10 seconds behind Ledecky — and beating her open water idols, Haley Anderson and Ashley Twichell, who finished the 1,500 in fourth and fifth, respectively.

To achieve her Olympic dream, Sullivan, 20, had to overcome anxiety, panic attacks, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in the past few years. From Las Vegas, Nevada, Sullivan postponed college in 2018 and will attend the University of Texas after the Tokyo Games.

At age 16, Bella Sims will be one of the youngest members of the U.S. Swim Team.

Fresh from her sophomore year in high school, Filipino American Bella Sims made her first Olympic team as a prelim swimmer in the 4x200 freestyle relay. The 16-year-old only started training and competitive racing five years ago. Before that, she was only taking swim lessons.

Like teammate Erica Sullivan, Sims trains with the Sandpipers of Nevada. In the 200 freestyle, Sims dropped 2.5 seconds off her personal best, finishing fifth and scoring a relay prelim spot, meaning she will compete in the preliminaries but give up her spot if the relay team makes it to the finals.

Nathan Adrian's comeback after contracting testicular cancer two and one-half years ago would have been a compelling story for media and the slew of products that he endorses. He returned to training in 2019. The Bremerton, Washington resident failed to make the finals in his primary event, the 100m freestyle. He needed to finish in the top eight to make the finals. His time in the prelims was good enough for 13th.

In the 50m freestyle finals, the Chinese American swimmer just missed making the team by finishing 3rd. The top two spots made the team.

“If I was to commit to anything right now, it would really, genuinely mean nothing,” said Adrian, who already has eight medals to his credit. The new father was disappointed but not broken up about not making the Olympic team. “What I will commit to doing is taking a good break, letting my body, letting my mind just recover.”

After failing to qualify, Adrian tweeted the following: