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Long Gutierrez
Sport: Men's Swimming (100 Fly)
Country: Mexico
Twitter: @GutierrezLong ; Instagram: @LongGutierrez
Birthday: February 23rd, 1995 (age 21)
Hometown: Cottonwood, Utah (Born in Mexico City, Mexico but moved to the U.S. at age 2)
Cal affiliation: current California Golden Bears student (rising senior, Integrated Biology major)
Years at Cal: 2013 - present
Olympic appearances: 2016 Rio will be Long's 1st Olympic games
Cal Achievements:
Long Gutierrez has been a major contributor to the Cal Men's Swimming team in all 3 years, with increasing role. He contribute to both the freestyle and butterfly events as well as the various freestyle and medley relays.
At the 2016 NCAA Championships, Long placed 12th in the 200 Free for points (Bears finished 2nd to Texas at the meet). He also swam in the 200 and 400 Free relay and the 400 medley relay (helping the Bears to score more points), in addition to the 100 Fly and 200 Fly. In the 2015 NCAA Championships, Long swam in the 200 Free, 200 Fly, and 500 Free individual events as well as the 800 Free relay.
In his freshman year (2014), Long finished 11th in 200 Fly and swam in the 6th place 800 Free relay to score points for the Golden Bears en route to a team NCAA national championship, seen below from the Bears' championship tour at an Oakland A's game. He also competed in the 500 Free and 200 Free at the NCAA's.
Long has also swum in several Pac-12 winning relays with the Golden Bears. In the most recent season, he was a part of the Pac-12 winning 400 Free, 800 Free, and 400 Medley relays. There is no doubt that Long Gutierrez will be a major part of the Golden Bears' bid to win another NCAA team national championship in 2017.
International Achievements:
Long Gutierrez owns several Mexican swimming records - 200 Free Long Course (LC), 50 Fly LC, 100 Fly LC, 4x200 Free relay LC, and 4x100 medley relay LC.
Long actually competed in the 2012 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, but switched to compete for Mexico at the 2013 FINA World Championship in Barcelona, where he raced in the 200 Free. Long also represented Mexico at the 2015 Pan American Games, where he set some Mexican swimming records with what appears to be a fun loving group.
In Rio, he will be one of only three Mexican swimmers. Long is joined in Rio by a long distance swimmer in Ricardo Vargas and a decorated woman sprinter in Lilliana Ibanez.
@GutierrezLong y yo en nuestra última competencia antes de #Río. Gracias @ACC_Castillo y @CONADE x el apoyo! #MEX pic.twitter.com/A6umm9Irs6
— Liliana Ibáñez (@liliyaks) July 15, 2016
More on Long and his Rio outlook:
Long Yuan Miguel Gutierrez was born in Mexico City but grew up in Cottonwood, Utah. Long has dual citizenship. In the state of Utah, Long owns 50 state swimming records, including 3 individual high school records in 100 Free, 200 Free, and 200 Fly.
A nice article on Long and his family from the Cottonwood local paper talks about how his family moved the family to the U.S. to give him more of an opportunity to pursue his swimming dreams. On the other hand, it said that the family moved when Long was merely 2 or 3 years old, I do think his family moved to the U.S. to give him more opportunities, but it probably was not clear that the opportunity would be in swimming until Long was older. At age 7, Long started to swim competitively. He quickly became one of the best swimmer ever to come out of the state of Utah.
More from that article:
Now, four years later, not only is Gutierrez a member of the University of California swim team, but he has also achieved the goal he has been working towards his whole life: On Aug. 8, he qualified to swim for Mexico in the 2016 Olympics.
After qualifying in the 100-meter butterfly over a month ago at the US National Championships in San Antonia, Texas, the reality of his success still hasn't set in.
"When we were at Nationals, I was not expecting to make it. My morning swim was kind of OK - I added a second and a half," Gutierrez said. "So I wasn't expecting anything too big out of the swim. But when I saw my time, it was the craziest thing ever. But I still don't think it's hit me yet."
After posting a qualifying time at the US National Championships last summer, Long has achieved his dream of going to the Olympics. Unfortunately, it appears that Long's father has already passed away before seeing Long achieve this dream.
While the Mexican swimming contingent is a bit small, Long will have plenty of Gold Bears friends in Rio. More from that article:
"The Olympics are going to be really, really fun," Gutierrez said. "Being there with my team from Mexico, but knowing that I'll have some other Cal Bears there — I'm pretty sure my coach is going to be there — is going to be awesome. Being there with both of my teams is going to be an absolutely incredible experience."
Judging from this old Instagram photo, Long is also friendly Calympian Spanish water polo player and London 2012 silver medalist Roser "Ru" Tarrago who will also be in Rio (by pure coincidence, her profile will be up later today).
Long will compete in just one event, the 100 Fly. He will need to really improve his time to make the final against Calympian Tom Shields and probably that Michael Phelps guy. Nevertheless, I hope he has a great experience in Rio and will return to Cal to lead the Golden Bears to more NCAA glory in 2017.
Good luck to Long in Rio and GO BEARS!