| Dominik Meichtry learned
to swim when he was three-years-old.
A future Golden Bear, the Swiss national was living in the Democratic Republic of Congo when his father, Richard, taught him how to swim as a safety precaution because his home had a swimming pool.
“I’ve always loved the water,” Dominik said. “Often I tried to see how long I could stay under water. I loved diving for coins. I would spend three or four hours in the pool a day. I was in my own little world there.”
But the aspiring Olympian thought he’d never swim again after a skiing accident at the age of 15.
Meichtry was living with his family in Hong Kong when he went on a school field trip, ironically, to Switzerland. Meichtry picked up too much speed on the slopes, tumbled and came to a stop. His right ski had fallen off, but his left ski was still attached to his leg. That effectively broke his hip.
He had fractured the neck of the femur, between the ball joint and the femur, of his left leg. After surgery, Meichtry’s doctor told him his leg would never heal enough to allow him to participate in competitive sports again.
“I was in shock,” Meichtry said. “Everything had been going perfectly in my life.”
But Meichtry, who loved many sports including basketball, baseball and soccer, was determined to return to his athletic lifestyle. A month after surgery, Meichtry was walking with crutches and going to physical therapy every day.
Another problem arose: The ball joint in his left hip collapsed due to the lack of blood flowing in that area of his hip after surgery. After another operation, Meichtry’s doctors told him he might need an artificial hip.
“For a 15-year-old boy, that’s not possible,” he said. “Hips have to be replaced every 10 years. That would mean in my lifetime I would have maybe seven hip surgeries.”
Meichtry found another option with an orthopedic surgeon in Switzerland. Dr. Bernhard Webber used a procedure that put a variety of wires and screws in his hip to hold the joint in place over the course of a year. The rehabilitation included work in a pool. He could swim and even compete before he could walk without the aid of crutches.
The metal was removed from his leg at the end of the year.
“Everything’s fine now,” Meichtry said. “I can run, but not too long. I’m working on my flexibility on my hip and can play most sports. The only thing I can’t do, ever, is gymnastics.”
Spanning the globe
Meichtry took a roundabout route to Berkeley.
Another in the long line of talented swimmers who have joined California from abroad, he competed in his former hometown at the 2004 Athens Olympics. He finished seventh in his heat (1:50.02) of the 200-meter freestyle semifinal.
Meichtry, his parents and younger brother, Pascal, often moved because his father worked for Swissair, in managerial and executive positions, in Europe, North America and Africa.
Born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, Meichtry spent most of his first two years of life in Athens, and then lived with his family in what was still Zaire until he was six. Next, the Meichtrys lived in Los Angeles for five years before moving to Hong Kong, where they witnessed the 1997 handover of the country from the British to the Chinese. From 2000-04, the Meichtrys lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, where Dominik swam for coach Peter Williams on the Waterborn Swim Club.
Williams, a former Nebraska swimmer, helped him get closer to reaching his potential.
“He emphasizes practicing strokes,” Meichtry said. “Lots of different strokes, different drills. Peter’s drills are what make people faster. I made a big European Championship team with only swimming drills.”
Williams put Meichtry in touch with Cal coaches Nort Thornton and Mike Bottom. Meichtry considered the likes of Florida, Arizona and USC but went with his coach’s choice.
“He spoke highly of Nort and Cal,” Meichtry said. “Peter Williams was a sprinter, and Mike is a sprint coach, so Peter was very interested in what Mike could do. I just thought if my coach thinks it’s a good place for me to go, I should go.”
Artist in the water
Meichtry is not a sprinter at Cal, yet. He is a 6-0, 160-pound middle-distance and distance swimmer who swims everything from the 200 to 1650 freestyles. Last season, he swam Cal’s top times in the 200 (1:34.69) and the 1650 (15:14.11).
As a freshman, Meichtry was an important part of Cal’s 2004-05 campaign, which ended with a fourth-place finish at the NCAA championships. He earned All-American honors as part of the seventh-place 800-yard free relay and honorable mention All-American honors for taking 10th in the 200 free. He was named the Pac-10 Newcomer of the Year after finishing second in the 200, sixth in the 1650 and eighth in the 500 frees at the conference meet.
Thornton, in his 32nd year at Cal, almost waxes poetic when talking about Meichtry.
“Some musicians have a nice touch with keys or strings, and he has that going for him in the pool,” Thornton said. “He’s not an extremely large individual, but he gets a lot out of the size that he has. He floats like a cork and has a nice feel for the water. The first time I saw him swim, he floated an inch or two higher than the average guy. He barely splashes the water. He really has a lot of finesse. As a swimmer, he’s really the equivalent of an artist or a jeweler as opposed to a mechanic or a plumber.”
Meichtry, 19, is also polished out of the water. Undeclared as a sophomore, he’s leaning towards majoring in mass communications and plans to pick his father’s brain about how communication skills have helped the elder Meichtry in the aviation and management consultant industries.
The younger Meichtry has some communications savvy. He has a Web site under construction that will allow his fans in Switzerland tofollow his exploits at Cal and around the world. DominikMeichtry.com, perhaps in German and English, may be up and running this January.
The well-rounded Meichtry continues to impress Thornton.
“He’s a very squared-away guy,” Thornton said. “Maybe the experiences of his life and having to rethink things after his accident have helped him. He’s very focused on what he needs to do and wants to do. It’s really a pleasure to have him on the team.”
By Dean Caparaz Cal ’90
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