Sean Ryan

Staff Photo by Dan Henry Sean Ryan, a senior classman at McCallie School, stands at the edge of the Warner Park swimming pool after practice on Friday. Ryan will be heading to the World Championships in Italy in July to compete.

"The pool and the open water are totally different animals," Ryan said. "If you're in the pool and someone like Michael Phelps has a best time that's 12 seconds faster than your best time, he can pretty much cruise in an event and still beat you. In the open water, it's every man for himself, and if the lead guy gets battered around a lot and has a bad race, you can beat him."

A 25k race is 15.5 miles, and Ryan will be among 30 to 35 competitors swimming a 2.5-kilometer loop 10 times.

Ryan is the only male other than Phelps since the mid 1970s to represent the United States at the World Championships as a 16-year-old. He likely will be the lone teenager in his event and should be the lightest as well, checking in at 6-foot-3 and 147 pounds.

He gained the country's top billing in Rome's 25k when the top two Fort Myers finishers chose to compete in the 5k and 10k events.

Sean Ryan is experiencing the excitement of being a 16-year-old swimmer who has qualified for next month's World Championships in Rome, Italy.

Then there is the task of swimming against the Europeans, who are far more experienced in the open water and often far more brutal.

He's also contemplating the unknown of competing in an event he's never tried before.

"It's way more physical than American swimming," McCallie coach Stan Corcoran said. "A lot of Americans struggle with going over there and having somebody beat the snot out of them while they're swimming. That's something he's going to have to adapt to."

Ryan will be a McCallie School senior in several weeks but first will serve as the top-seeded American on July 25 in a 25-kilometer race in the Mediterranean Sea. Ryan, representing the Scenic City Aquatic Club, earned a spot on the U.S. national team on June 14 with a third-place finish in a 10k ocean race at Fort Myers, Fla.

Said Ryan: "I've been to more than enough competitions and I've raced against the big boys, so to speak, at the Olympic trials and various meets I've been to. I think I'm prepared."

By being prepared, Ryan means he's ready to mix it up if needed.

The three keys to open-water swimming are positioning, drafting and finishing, with positioning and drafting serving as factors for almost the entire race. Swimmers can conserve energy in long races by drafting, which involves staying right on the heels of another competitor.

"If you can drag your hands along their feet and annoy them, that's all the better," said Ryan, who's been kicked in the face and the collarbone in races this year. "It's a very mental sport, and if you can take someone out of their comfort zone, their stress picks up and that makes them feel more tired.

"I've sort of learned just to let it go when someone is doing it to me. If it gets to be too much, I sort of give them a big kick to let them know to get off my back."

Ryan is prepping for the 25k at Warner Park's 50-meter pool and in the Tennessee River. Next Monday, he will swim four hours in Lake Chickamauga.

His parents, Eugene and Margret, are traveling to Italy along with Corcoran for support, but all three have to pay their own way. Ryan has a free ride courtesy of U.S. Swimming.

Ryan first will compete in the 400- and 1500-meter freestyle events July 7 and 10 at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis with hopes of having an even busier World Championships. He has the fastest 1500 time of any high-school swimmer (15 minutes, 34 seconds), but Corcoran believes Ryan would need to shave 16 to 18 seconds off his personal best to qualify.

His 25k swim is expected to last anywhere from 4 hours, 50 minutes to 5 hours, 30 minutes, and Corcoran believes it may be witnessed by as many as 350,000 spectators along the shoreline.

"We're trying to get better, but the Europeans have been doing this for a while," Corcoran said. "A European can make $150,000 in a summer, when they have their racing season. They get paid appearance fees and there is prize money.

"In Europe it's a pretty big deal, and that's who he's going to be up against."