Miller to Represent Jayhawks at NCAA Championships
LAWRENCE, Kan. – Looking to improve on her strong performance at the 2014 Big 12 Championships, sophomore Chelsie Miller will represent Kansas at the NCAA National Championships in Minneapolis, Minn., March 20-22, at the Minnesota Aquatic Center.
Throughout the season, Miller has qualified for three events: the 200-yard individual medley (Thursday), the 400-yard individual medley (Friday) and the 1650-yard freestyle (Saturday). She broke KU all-time records in all three events at the Big 12 Championships earlier this month.
“It was a good training week,” head coach Clark Campbell said. “Luckily with the Big 12 Championships being in her home state, she was able to stay and relax a little bit. She had a good chance to recover from the meet. We put together three good days of training at the end of last week and now we’ve started tapering her. She’s healthy and feeling well. This is her first taper. Everything else we have just done a resting period. We’re excited to see what she does with more rest than she is accustomed to.”
During the 2013 AT&T Winter Nationals, Miller snagged a silver medal by placing second in the 400-yard IM with a time of 4:08.86, a time of which she improved upon at the Big 12 Championships (4:07.97). Miller began the tapering, gradual reduction in training in and out of the water, early last week in the hopes of getting on the podium again.
“The mindset that someone needs to have going into a competition like this is getting best times,” Campbell said. “Chelsie was able to get qualifying times without investing a lot of preparation. It took a lot of effort at the time, but since we haven’t tapered yet, that gives her an advantage going into the meet because she still has something left in the tank. If she goes there and gets three personal best times, it will be a good day.”
Miller and supporting staff will arrive in Minneapolis on Tuesday to prepare for competition on Thursday. Campbell hopes to see Miller improve on her strong performances during the Big 12 Championships where she became the first-ever Jayhawk to earn a Big 12 Championship. She placed first in the 400 IM and helped Kansas to its highest team finish in school history, second place.
“The importance of believing in herself and what she has done all season is going to take her to the next level,” Campbell said. “She needs to go there and focus on her own lane and perform well in the morning. That’s one thing that we have talked about. Starting last weekend, we started training in the morning at the same time preliminaries would be. She needs to get into the habit of doing her best times in the morning and improve on that performance at night.”
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