How A Former DI Hockey Commit Became An Olympic Swimming Trials Finalist In Under Two Years

INDIANAPOLIS, I.N. — When the finalists for the women’s 100 breaststroke at the 2024 U.S. Olympic trials began walking out, their accomplishments were read out loud, one by one.

World record holder, Lilly King. Olympic gold medalist, Lydia Jacoby. Olympic medalist, Alex Walsh. NCAA Champion, Kaitlyn Dobler. NCAA All-American, Ella Nelson. NCAA All-American, Kaelyn Gridley. NCAA All-American, Emma Weber.

And then there was McKenzie Siroky, who was introduced as a Michigan High School state champion — still an impressive feat, but far from the national or international accolades of her competitors. What wasn’t announced was that Siroky has only been swimming full-time for a year, and that just two years ago, she was committed to playing Division I hockey for a program with five national championships. At that time, King was the only swimmer she knew of (“I don’t really have any clue about swimming…the only person I knew was Lilly King because someone told me she won breaststroke at the Olympics,” Siroky said to SwimSwam in 2021), and now she was competing against her.

But meets aren’t won based on resumes. And Siroky was still right up there, competing alongside swimmers much more decorated than her, with an equal shot as anyone for those top two spots to get on the Paris Olympic team.

“I’m not the most experienced kid in the pool right now,” Siroky said. “But I sure will be the most competitive. When I jump in that water, I’m racing. I’m ready. It’s go time.”

Siroky finished in seventh place with a personal best time of 1:07.71 — her third best time in three rounds of racing. As she describes her result, “it’s not Paris,” but it was a flash of potential that showed just how good she could be.

The reality is, that swim was just Siroky’s warm-up. She’s only getting started, and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics are already on her mind.

“Give me four years of college and a little more year-round training, and I’ll be back, I promise.” Siroky said.

The Roots

As Siroky descended down the steps besides the team entrance at Lucas Oil Stadium, she was met with cheers from a mob in blue shirts, which had “Team Siroky” printed on them in big, bold letters. This crowd consisted of over 60 of Siroky’s relatives and friends, who came from Livonia, Michigan to support their local celebrity.

While Siroky took photos with young kids and got swarmed by supporters, her father, Pete Siroky, stood off to the side beaming. His daughter’s life was a whirlwind of change over the the last two years, but he was a little less surprised than most about her new reality.

For the majority of McKenzie Siroky‘s life, she was a hockey player first, swimmer second. Her three older brothers played the sport, and she followed them from a young age. She became one of the best youth hockey players in the nation, competing on the Livona Stevenson High School boys’ varsity team. In her junior year of high school, she committed to play for the University of Minnesota Duluth and was in consideration to make the U.S. U18 squad for the 2022 International Hockey Federation World Championships, though she didn’t make the final cut.

“We talked about that in eighth grade — hockey was her number one sport, and that was gonna be it,” said Gregg Phil, Siroky’s high school swimming coach.

But in the background, swimming also drove McKenzie Siroky‘s life. Her mother, Michele Ann Siroky, swam at Stevenson High and Michigan State and formerly was an assistant under Phil at Stevenson. She was the one who first influenced her daughter into the sport when she was three. Michele Ann passed away due to brain cancer in 2017, when McKenzie was 12 years old, but her impact lived on.

McKenzie Siroky continued swimming high school and summer league afterward, winning three Michigan high school state titles in the 100 breast and breaking the state record twice. Before the state championship meet during her senior year, she set a goal to break one minute in the event — she went 1:00.07, missing by less-than-a-tenth.

It was that moment when Siroky realized that she was not ready to let swimming go. So much about her potential was still unanswered, and she didn’t want to miss out on the “what ifs.”

“I just looked at that 0.07, and it didn’t hit me. After my meet I was like, ‘I’m not done. Something’s not right,'” Siroky said. “A couple days later, I knew my swim career wasn’t done. I wasn’t ready to drop it.”

“I love the number seven, I’m one of seven in my family and ironically, I just placed seventh at trials. I think that had a lot to do [with my decision.]…I think my switch over to swimming was meant to happen.”

In February 2023, Siroky officially decided to give up her future in hockey to pursue the unknowns in swimming, committing to swim at the University of Tennessee for the fall of 2024. She also chose to take a gap year to qualify for Olympic trials, training year-round for the first time with her life alongside Phil.

Siroky’s choice was seemingly guided by angel numbers, but once again, she wasn’t the only one who believed in destiny — so did her father.

“I knew it was something that was in her heart, that [McKenzie] wanted to do,” Pete Siroky said of swimming. “I knew that she was going to give it everything she got to do it…whatever she was going to do, she was going to do it best.”

Turning Up the Volume

When McKenzie Siroky began her gap year, Phil wanted to work on her aerobic endurance, something that he thinks can only be built up with experience. It was also important for her to continue fine-tuning her technique. Her biggest weaknesses all stemmed from the fact that she didn’t swim enough — a luxury she couldn’t afford back when she played hockey.

“One thing that has really helped me in practice is learning how to pace and make certain intervals,” Siroky said. “That has really helped me grow.”

“I’m just really excited when I get to Tennessee to kind of dial down on development and just the little details that could give me an advantage for my goals.”

However, Siroky wasn’t walking into her full-time swimming career totally empty-handed. Her experience in hockey helped her gain the lower body power required for lateral breaststroke kicking, and her accumulated hours in the gym gave her the physical strength that a sprinter needed.

In other words, hockey made Siroky a breaststroke natural.

“[Hockey] is one of the main reasons why breaststroke is more natural than me than other strokes,” Siroky said. “It’s that same power and movement and stride and push.”

Prior to her gap year, Siroky had never touched a long course pool. And yet, in her first-ever long course meet during August 2023, she clocked a time of 1:09.14, hitting an Olympic trials cut. She kept on improving throughout the next 10 months, eventually getting to the 1:07 range in March 2024.

It was around that time when both Siroky and Phil realized that finaling at Olympic trials was tangible. They both made it her meet goal, but neither of them knew it.

“I’m glad [finaling] was her goal,” Phil said. “It was my goal, but I didn’t tell her that. I didn’t want to put that added pressure on. I thought that she had a shot to final…and it all worked out.”

And there Siroky was, 17 months after fully committing to swimming, standing beside seven of the fastest women in America in front of thousands of fans and just a race away from the Olympics. She crossed herself, pointed up at the ceiling in honor of her mom, and got up on the blocks — ready to show the nation what she was capable of now, and what she could be capable of in the future.

It took her 18 years to realize it, but the daughter of Michele Ann Siroky was always going to be a swimmer. And she became a very good one, carrying her mother’s legacy every step of the way.

“She’d just be really proud,” McKenzie Siroky said of how her mother would think of her career today. “I know she was with me during that [trials] race…[I told her] ‘this is us, we got this, we’re gonna race this.’ Every time I’m racing, I now she’s racing right beside me and with me.”