Haddonfield High rising senior Henry McFadden is finishing his swim season by representing the nation and the Jersey Wahoos club in the international 2022 Junior Pan Pacific (PanPac) Swimming Championships next month in Honolulu.
It is the first time the event has been held since 2018 due to COVID. The 16-year-old McFadden – who will compete in the 200-meter freestyle – is one of 41 swimmers from around the country who qualified at the International Team Trials in Greensboro, North Carolina, earlier this year to compete against swimmers from Canada, Japan and Australia.
At the trials, he competed in the 18U 200-meter butterfly and the 400-meter freestyle, and placed first in the 18U 200-meter freestyle with a time of 1:49.57.
“I’m really looking forward to the experience of being surrounded by the best high-school- age [swimmers],” said McFadden.
Paul Donovan, CEO and head coach for the Jersey Wahoos, has been working with McFadden on the national team for three years. Over that time he’s seen McFadden grow both as a person and an athlete.
“Henry’s been to International Team Trials, he’s been to USA Swimming and Junior Nationals, a pro-swim series run by USA Swimming, he’s been to training camps where he went down to Florida and did nothing but swim for 10 days at a time,” Donovan noted.
“(With) the growth in swimming (over the past three years as part of the Wahoo’s National Team) he’s doubled his training time and probably tripled his training value, because they do a higher volume of work the older they get as well,” the coach added.
Donovan recalled that three years ago, McFadden’s time for the 200-meter freestyle was about 1 minute and 57 seconds.
“(He’s) dropping three to four seconds a year,” Donovan said.
In addition to swimming for the Wahoos, McFadden also competes with his high school team. He has been named Boys Swimmer of the Year by The Sun’s South Jersey Sports Weekly for winning two individual titles in the NJSIAA Boys Swimming State Championships: the 200-yard and the 500-yard freestyle.
McFadden – who will be swimming for Stanford University in 2023 – was also the high-point award winner at the Mid-Atlantic Senior Championships in both short course and long course this year.
As part of national team preparation, McFadden trains six days a week, Monday through Saturday, for two-and-a-half hours. Three days a week, he will have double practices where he will swim for two hours in the morning and again in the afternoon in addition to weightlifting/land training.
“It’s a lot of pushing myself to the maximum to see what I can do,” the teen said. “Every day at practice we do something that pushes ourselves maybe further than we thought, which is fun and hard, but that’s how we get better.”
To keep himself motivated, McFadden sets goals for himself and keeps working at them.
“I enjoy it,” he noted. “ … I don’t think I’d be able to stay motivated if I didn’t enjoy it.”
To learn more about the Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, visit https://swimswam.com/2022-junior-pan-pacific-championships-confirmed-for-honolulu-in-august/.
