Faced with the choice of where to dedicate his time, sophomore Gian Manzon chose swimming over basketball because of how physically taxing it was, as he kept getting small injuries.

Since then, he has never looked back. 

He now competes for La Salle’s varsity team and for the Legacy Aquatics swimming club in Oregon City during the offseason, where he has trained for the past two years. As a sprinter, Manzon typically competes in events such as the 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter freestyle, 100-meter butterfly, and was placed on the backstroke leg of the La Salle state relay team last year. 

Manzon is most excited to reunite with his relay team, made up of mostly returning underclassmen. 

“It’s going to be pretty much the same team, so I assume we’re just going to improve who we are right now,” he said.

This year, balancing swimming with the demands of his honors courses — Honors Algebra II, Honors Chemistry, and Honors English II — will be a challenge for Manzon, as they have a heavier workload and demand more energy.

However, he finds a productive familiarity in the routine of academics and athletics, specifically the shift between finishing the school day and heading to swimming practice.

“School and sports really, in my opinion, gets you set in the zone that you kind of follow,” he said. “It gets me in a set type of schedule and zone to just like, knock out the things I need to be doing.” 

Another challenge he faces is building up his confidence after an incident occurred during a crucial moment in his season last year. 

While competing in an individual event during the state qualifier preliminary round, he was feeling confident, but slipped off of the diving block during takeoff, and ended up placing fourth, even though he was ranked second in that pool, so he was unable to go to state. This season he will work to regain faith. “I really took a toll because I really wanted to go individually,” he said.

Manzon is very devoted to his progress and team, he said, but academics is always a priority, meaning that “sometimes there are practices you have to skip because school for me is always first,” he said. 

Manzon’s father enrolled him in a swimming class, as a safety precaution when he was young. Through elementary and middle school he practiced inconsistently, participating in CYO swimming, but became serious about it in high school when he decided to join a competitive club. 

Manzon treasures the relationships cultivated through swimming.

“The swimming community is very supportive,” he said. “There’s always someone I feel you can talk to, definitely, like my coaches.” 

He really looks up to his coach, Keenan Robinson, who holds many of the swimming records for the school, explaining that “I’m trying to follow in his footsteps.” In addition, he admires his older brother, who was also a basketball and swimming athlete, often finding himself motivated by competing with his achievements, even though they are 10 years apart.

Manzon’s favorite part of practices are towards the end. As he said, “we get to do these dives where you can race each other for a lap.” He especially appreciates competing against his relay teammates because “you can help each other improve,” he said, which “really helps you to be your best in that moment.” 

He values the individuality of the sport, as well as the community.

“You can hold your own expectation on how you see yourself, and that’s the biggest part of swim in my opinion,” he said. “You set how you want to improve for yourself.”

Before meets, Manzon prioritizes rest the night before, and stays focused by listening to his favorite music.

“I just blast my favorite song, or my favorite playlist, whatever’s on my mind,” he said. 

To be able to focus on his performance, Manzon needs quiet and little distraction.

“I just pretend to be in my own zone… I need my type of space,” he said “I just have to be with myself and my music and my thoughts before I actually do the meet.”

Beyond swimming, Manzon is active in the choir and the Asian American Pacific Islander affinity group. In his limited free time, he enjoys playing basketball with his brother, practicing the piano — which he has played for seven years — and pursues his passion for cars. “I’m a big car person,” he said. “A lot of people don’t know that, but I am.”

In the future, his goals are to live a stable life, and he is interested in pursuing a possible career studying dentistry or anesthesiology. 

His advice for anyone interested in joining swimming is to just give it a try because the outcome might be surprising. 

“It’s a great place to meet a lot of new people and feel supported, even if you’ve never really swam,” he said. “You’re going to find a group of people and feel supported by them…It’s a really encouraging place to be, and you might find yourself feeling pretty motivated to continue.” 

For Manzon, that is the most important aspect of swimming, and what he is most looking forward to. 

“Just being able to swim with these people again means a lot,” Manzon said.

Correction: Nov. 26, 2024

A previous version of this article misspelled Gian Manzon’s last name in the pull quote.