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Good as gold

Sophomore swimmer from Panama brings international experience to Frogs.

Good as gold

Sophomore Edgar Crespo had a breakout year for the Frogs, winning gold at the 2010 MWC Championships in the 100-breast, while setting a new TCU record time for the event at 53.32.

Good as gold

Sophomore swimmer from Panama brings international experience to Frogs.

Don’t mind if Edgar Crespo just sticks to the water.

Back in the fall, the Frogs’ sophomore swimming sensation from Panama borrowed a bicycle from the campus Purple Bike program and went for a cruise to the park. But on the way back, while zooming downhill on Forest Park Boulevard, the chain broke and Crespo didn’t know how to stop.

“I got a call that Edgar had smashed into a truck that was stopped at a light and needed to go to the hospital,” his coach Richard Sybesma said. “He was probably going about 15 miles an hour when he crashed.”

Fortunately, Crespo only suffered a couple of bruised ribs and some scrapes and cuts. Unfortunately, the injuries were enough to keep him from training for 10 days, which was a problem. Crespo was scheduled to swim for his home country in the Bolivarian Games in Ecuador.

Sybesma and the TCU coaches were concerned, but they knew how much Panama wanted its star swimmer to compete, so they didn’t interfere.

Something of a national hero, Crespo owns the country’s only swimming gold and swam the breaststroke last summer in the Beijing Games, though he  failed to advance to the semifinals.

“I am very proud of my country and wanted to swim my best,” he said.
Crespo finished second and nearly tied a personal best time.

“I was not at my best, but I swam hard,” he remembered.

Then it was time to get back for his next TCU meet, but a tropical storm in the Caribbean delayed his travel.

“He finally got back to campus on a Friday, wakes up Saturday morning and sweeps the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststroke events against Wyoming,” Sybesma said. “He’s so proud to be swimming in the United States at a university. And he’s the real deal.”
Growing up in a single-parent home on limited means, Crespo got into swimming as a preventative measure.

As an 8-year-old, he moved to a new school in Panama which had a pool. Fearing that her son might drown, his mother got Crespo into free swimming lessons at an area rec pool.
“She was afraid that I would get pushed in the water,” he said.

Crespo joined the H2O Frogs this season, and they were happy to have him.

He went undefeated in the 100- breaststroke, including winning the individual Mountain West Conference title in the event. His time of 53.32 set a TCU record and qualified him to compete in the NCAA National Championships in March, the second Frog swimmer to participate since 1997.

He also went unbeaten in the 200-yard breaststroke and swam the breaststroke leg of the 200-medley relay, which set a Frog record and took second at the conference championship meet. Crespo earned All-Conference honors in both.

“He’s one of the reasons this season’s been special,” Sybesma said.

Update:
At the NCAA Championships, Crespo posted a time of 54.00 in the
preliminary event to miss the cut for the finals and place 27th overall.