Olympic athlete, NCAA record-holder and Auburn Tiger Adrianna Vanderpool-Wallace, has proved to be an irreplaceable member of the Auburn women's swimming and diving team.
It has taken the Bahamas-native dedication and hard work to swim at the level she does today. Vanderpool-Wallace started swimming at a young age.
"I enjoyed it, so I knew that it was something that I wanted to do," she said.
Vanderpool-Wallace's parents, Vincent and Tietchka Vanderpool-Wallace, have played a predominant role in her starting and pursuing her swimming career.
"My mom and my dad are like huge supporters of me, whether I swim fast or I swim slow," Vanderpool-Wallace said. "So I definitely wouldn't be swimming still if it wasn't for them."
Her mother, who used to be a swimmer, put her and her brother, Aleksandr, into a summer swimming league, and she hasn't stopped swimming since.
"Growing up, I kind of moved around swim teams a lot," Vanderpool-Wallace said. "Then my mom coached me for a while. Swimming isn't really big in the Bahamas. There wasn't a lot going on. So I went to boarding school when I was 14 to pursue my swimming career."
Vanderpool-Wallace attended high school at Bolles in Jacksonville, Fla., where she swam for the Bolles School Sharks.
Soon after graduating from high school, Vanderpool-Wallace competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, becoming the second female from the Bahamas to ever qualify for the Olympics in swimming.
"It was my first big international competition, so I just really went in to kind of observe to see what went on," Vanderpool-Wallace said. "I wasn't really expecting to medal or to final or anything like that."
Vanderpool-Wallace said she hopes to qualify for the 2012 Olympics in London.
Since the 2008 Olympics, Vanderpool-Wallace has continued to prove herself as one of the best female athletes in the world, swimming for the Bahamas and for the Auburn Tigers.
"She sets the standards really high, and she has goals, and she's not afraid to go after those goals," said Brett Hawke, head coach of swimming and diving at Auburn.
She has represented the Bahamas in the 2009 World Championships as well as the 2010 Central American and Caribbean Games, in which she finished with two gold medals and two silver medals.
Vanderpool-Wallace was also named the 2011 SEC Female Swimmer of the Year and swam a record-breaking, 46.81-second 100-yard freestyle, which is the NCAA record.
Currently, after another successful season, Vanderpool-Wallace is training for the 2011 FINA World Championships in July, after which she will begin training for the Olympics.
"Now she's kind of hit the pinnacle, and she's really fighting for the medals in the world championships and the Olympics next year," Hawke said.
To train and prepare for the Olympics, she will be swimming six days per week, morning and night, and will be in the gym three times a week as well, Hawke said.
"She comes in every day with the attitude that she wants to get better," Hawke said.
If history repeats itself, Vanderpool-Wallace will not disappoint.
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