“Judges and timers ready?” said the starter. “Swimmers, take your marks!” We all stepped onto our starting blocks, crouched in the start position, and waited for the gun. I focused straight ahead, staring at the other end of the 50-meter pool. The water glistened in the hot Indiana sun. My heart slammed. This race was a qualifying heat for the 50-meter freestyle in my under-12 age group. It was part of a two-day regional swim competition conducted by the Amateur Athletic Union, a qualifying event for the Women’s Nationals in August. You couldn’t get to the nationals if you didn’t do well in the regionals, and you couldn’t do well in your region if you didn’t get into the finals. That meant placing in this qualifying heat.

I heard my mom yell, “OK, Gail. You can do it, sweetie!” The starter cocked his gun. And then an odd thing happened. The girl in the lane next to mine teetered back and forth a couple of times. I thought she was going to fall into the water, which would have been considered a false start. But she didn’t. I did! Watching her, I had thrown myself off balance and fallen feet first into the pool just as the gun was fired. I stood there in the shallow end as the other swimmers barreled toward the finish, looked up at the judge, and shouted, “Hey, that was a false start!”

“No, it wasn’t,” he said.

“But, but…”

“Sorry.” He shrugged.

I started to cry. Then I started to swim. I swam and cried all the way down the pool. I can still feel my arms tearing through that water and my feet kicking as if they had a life of their own. I gave one final burst of speed and slammed my hand onto the tiles at the finish. Then I looked up, still crying. The timer yelled, “Number two!” I realized I had managed by a hairsbreadth to come in second. My coach, Bob Busbey, grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the pool: “That was beautiful, really beautiful. I’ve never seen you move so fast!”

“But I only got second,” I said.

“I wouldn’t care if you had come in fifth!” he said. My time was good enough to get me into the finals later that day, and I was so motivated and energized that I took first place. Funny, no one ever talked much about that first-place medal. It was “crying and swimming all the way to second place” that they remembered. I’ve been in plenty of seemingly unfair, come-from-behind situations in my life since that hot July day in Indiana. But I always know what to do: I just ask myself, “So what’ll it be, Gail? Quit or swim?” And I can tell you, swimming always feels better. Even if I come in second.