One of the best up-and-coming swimmers in the country earned her first Olympic medal on Thursday night.
Alex Shackell, a 17-year-old incoming senior at Carmel High School (Ind.), was part of the United States’ silver-winning 4×200 swim team with Katie Ledecky. Shackell swam in the preliminaries but not the championship round, in which the U.S. finished in 7:40.86.
Shackell also raced the 200-meter butterfly earlier Thursday, finishing sixth. According to IndyStar, she was the youngest finalist.
She is the second girl in Indiana state history to win an Olympic medal while still in high school.
The Carmel High School contingency in this Olympics performed extremely well, with three of the four Olympians from this 106,000-person city medaling. Inside the city, dozens of people gathered in the public plaza despite poor weather and weekday afternoon events to watch their athletes compete on the giant television screen installed.
Drew Kibler, a 2018 graduate of Carmel competing in his second Olympic Games, won silver in the 4×200 freestyle relay. The group finished with a time of 7:00.98, securing the first Olympic medal for Kibler.
On Saturday, 1990 Carmel graduate Rajeev Ram became the oldest Olympic tennis medalist in 116 years, according to the IndyStar, when he and Austin Krajicek reached the doubles championship round but fell to the Australian team in three close sets 6-7 (6-8), 7-6 (7-1), 10-8. It’s Ram’s second silver medal after winning his first with Venus Williams in the 2016 Rio mixed doubles.
In addition, 2023 Carmel graduate Aaron Shackell finished eighth in the 400 freestyle.
“The fact that we can all celebrate their accomplishments together is amazing,” Carmel Mayor Sue Finkam said. “In this time, where division in this presidential election year is a little more in the forefront, I love the fact that we can celebrate something that we can all come together on.”
Swim club and high school team coach Chris Plumb was among the USA Team coaches in Paris, another nod to the prowess of Carmel swimming, one that has proven the monicker of SwimCity, USA coined by Finkam.
“He’s a fantastic person and an even better coach,” Finkam said about Plumb. “I can’t help but think it’s going to do nothing but grow our swimming program even bigger than it already is. Our Carmel Swim Club and Carmel Swim Academy in particular have said they’ve had unprecedented interest in their program.”
