The girl in a plain blue swimsuit and white swim cap just kept going. Looping overhead stroke after looping overhead stroke, Kayla Han's arms propelled the 13-year-old forward despite the burn building in her lungs and shoulders. A socially distant, limited-capacity crowd cheered. Han knew she was catching up.
"Here she comes!" two-time Olympic medalist Elizabeth Beisel exclaimed on the NBC feed as Han inched ahead.
Han hasn't stopped charging up the swimming ranks since her breakthrough performance at the Olympic Trials, where her epic comeback in the last 15 meters of the Wave I 400-meter individual medley B final earned more than 1.2 million views on YouTube. It was the most-watched clip of the 2021 Olympic trials and Han's unofficial coming-out party.
