YFD Senior Spotlight: 12 Questions with Selin Gonen

YFD Senior Spotlight: 12 Questions with Selin Gonen 

1) How long have you been on YFD?

I’ve been on YFD for 4.5 years.

2) Why did you choose the school you will attend next year?

 I knew I most likely wanted a big public school because of their abundance of research opportunities. When I toured Georgia Tech I was impressed with the rigor of their curriculum as well as their centrality in Atlanta, which has tons of internship opportunities and fun things to discover. The 1996 Olympic pool is another huge perk.

 3) Do you know what you want to study? If so, what?

 I’m entering as a prospective computer science major.

 4) What is your favorite memory of being on YFD? At my last short course meet, I was able to have a lot of fun with my friends and swim at the first pool I ever raced in. Afterwards, we went to the Cheesecake Factory, which I had never been to before, and had a ton of good food. It was a unique meet experience because I knew it was my last one, so I was able to remove some of the pressure and just enjoy myself.

5) What is the hardest set you can remember doing? There have been plenty of hard sets, but one of the really difficult ones that comes to mind is the Auburn set. It’s essentially 100x25s all out, with the interval decreasing with each group of 10 and the 100 easy intervals increasing between each group of 10. I’ve done this set plenty of times, but every time it sneaks up on me because I think it’ll be easy. However, it gets really tough towards the middle and end to hold the same times as the beginning, and the last few rounds are killer because I don’t have a lot of time to catch my breath.

6) What is your favorite coach story? A couple years ago, my friends and I carpooled to the Friday distance session of a meet with Naomi. When we got there, my friend realized her Airpods were missing, but we were running late, so we didn’t have much time to search for them. I didn’t know Naomi very well at the time, and I thought she would be super mad, but she thought it was really funny. After the meet, we found the Airpods under the spare tire in the trunk. I remember having a lot of fun because Naomi kept cracking jokes and I got to see another side of her.

7) If you could go back in time and tell yourself something as a younger swimmer, what would it be? I would tell myself that swimming is mostly something I do for fun and to feel good. Countless times in the past I’ve been super stressed about breaking a certain time or making a certain cut. While this of course matters, the most important and rewarding part of swimming is the feeling I get after a good practice and spending time with my friends.

8) How did you balance academics and being a competitive swimmer? I learned early on to be really efficient with my free time. During my free periods at school and as soon as I got home I would be doing homework, with the goal of finishing everything before practice (my practices tended to be later in the evening). That way I wouldn’t have anything on my mind during and after practice, and I could just focus on the sport/recovery.

9) What is your favorite pre-meet meal? Either a bagel sandwich or peanut butter oatmeal depending on the time of day.

10) What is your favorite event and why? This is an unpopular answer, but I actually like the 500 and the 400 IM a lot. There’s time to get into a groove and build a nice rhythm, and I find that I do especially well when I have someone to pace with and friends to cheer me on.

11) What is your proudest accomplishment to date? Continuing to stay committed to myself and the team throughout quarantine, and not losing morale despite being essentially stuck at the same times for the past year or two.

12) Do you have any advice for the younger swimmers on the team who might want to swim collegiately? Staying accountable to yourself is really important. If you build good habits early on, in terms of work ethic and practice attendance, it’ll become easier to keep those habits as you get older and your workload increases.