Gena Jorgenson Putting South Dakota on Swim Map

Gena Jorgenson Putting South Dakota on Swim Map; Debating Future as Professional

Gena Jorgenson had an amazing finish to her swimming profession at Nebraska and needed to proceed via the summer season.

The South Dakota native swam so effectively that it has turn into an issue – a superb downside.

Jorgenson has graduated from Nebraska, exhausted her eligibility and has taken a job in Omaha. But her instances have been so quick that she is contemplating persevering with to swim as an expert.

“It is whether or not I continue to swim collegiately. It means a great deal to me to have this option. If you asked me last year, I would have said now. This past collegiate and summer season kind of changed that,” Gena Jorgenson informed Swimming World. “I love the sport of swimming and it requires a lot of time. I have other career goals to work toward. I am taking a little break to see how things work out with having a job.”

And it isn’t simply any job.

“I am a research assistant for a neuroscience institute,” she mentioned. “I work in the neurodiversity lab. We are working with kids 8-11 and taking them through neuro scanning devices and look at their brain activity and how their brain is structure and to see how those correlate to radon exposure. It is very prevalent in Nebraska. We look at how that impacts their brain development”

It is a three-year research with the children in Omaha. Meaning Jorgenson must swim in Omaha in addition to Lincoln to proceed her profession.

“There is a lot to think about,” she mentioned.

Jorgenson was an NCAA qualifier all 4 years, incomes 4 All-American swims throughout her profession, the very best end being fourth within the 1650 freestyle (15:42.94) in March, serving to the Cornhuskers to a top-30 end for the primary time since 2021.

“It is so much fun to see how far the team has come from my freshman year to my senior year. You could kind of tell each year that we set higher standards for ourselves, and that is something that has helped us grow through the years,” Jorgenson mentioned. “It is the team culture. We don’t have the best facilities, we don’t have a 50-meter pool, but we have everything we need. We lose recruits because of that sometimes, but our team culture has really helped our program.”

The staff tradition has been extraordinarily vital to Jorgenson after not having highschool swimming to construct that staff dynamic in South Dakota.

“It definitely means a lot that I can separate South Dakota even though it doesn’t have a really big swim community (compared with other states),” Jorgenson mentioned. “I proved to myself that you can come from a small community and do bigger things.”

Jorgenson grew up in Aberdeen, a city of round 25,000, which had its personal group pool. She is one in every of two South Dakota natives to get pleasure from a formidable summer season, and provides the state a nudge on the nationwide stage. Nick Rounds was a finalist within the 100 backstroke at Nationals.

“I had a great group I could train with. South Dakota is the only state that doesn’t have it. It is definitely different than college swimming,” Jorgenson. “We all went to different schools to swim and my class across the state was probably one of the bigger classes to have swimmers continue collegiately. Being from South Dakota did kind of make me feel like I couldn’t go to a big school when I was looking. But I am glad I picked Nebraska.”

That continued into the summer season for Jorgenson.

She was the nationwide runnerup within the 800 free (8:31.18) on the U.S. National Championships in July and made the finals within the 400 free (4:10.33).

“I had a great summer. I was really pleased with everything. Training-wise, I definitely upped some things in the pool and did more weights than previous summers. That really helped. Having a good team culture was something that really helped. It is very cliche saying, but when you are happy, you swim faster, and that is definitely how I felt this summer,” she mentioned.

At the TYR Pro Swim Series cease in Indianapolis earlier in the summertime, Jorgenson took third within the 1500 freestyle (16:13.87), trailing simply Katie Ledecky and Katie Grimes.

“I had a really good meet in Indy, but (knowing I could take the next step) built over time,” Jorgenson mentioned.