Hasbani '07 eyes Beijing

When Meir Hasbani '07 exited through FitzRandolph Gate at his graduation in May, using his chemical engineering degree wasn't his top priority. Instead, he had his eyes set on a different kind of element — gold, specifically the Olympic variety.

Hasbani has been taking his four years on Princeton's swimming and diving team to a new level as a member of the Israeli national team, and now he's aiming even higher.

"If I improve and really swim my best, I can make my Olympic team," Hasbani said. "It's the kind of thing that is everyone's childhood dream, and the idea is a possibility for me now."

Though he has lived in America his entire life, Hasbani is an Israeli citizen because his parents are citizens, and he spent the summer after graduation training in Israel for the Israeli national swim team.

Hasbani's career at Princeton started off with a flash when he won three events at the annual Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet, a competition that continued to make memories for Hasbani throughout the years, including his sweetest victory when Princeton took home an underdog victory in DeNunzio Pool his senior year.

But his quest for the Olympics took flight only in the summer after his sophomore year. Representing the United States, Hasbani competed in the JCC Maccabi Games, an Olympic-style athletic competition for Jewish teenagers. After his race, the Israeli national coach asked Hasbani to contact him if he continued to improve.

So when Hasbani received All-American honors his junior year by placing seventh in the 200-meter butterfly at the NCAA meet, he made the phone call. The coach invited Hasbani to join him after graduation.

As a result, while his classmates have begun new jobs and careers, Hasbani is continuing to live out his lifelong passion of swimming. He hopped on a plane to Israel after graduation and spent the summer training on the national team. He swam at several meets, including the Paris Open swim meet as well as the Israeli National Competition, where he was the Israeli national champion in the 200-meter butterfly.

Now, Hasbani spends his days training outdoors at the University of Southern California. He practices and trains together with about 20 others at USC.

"It's kind of fun," Hasbani said. "I get to have a reprise before I have to go out in the real world. I love swimming, and my body is only getting older, so this is kind of a last hurrah."

Though Hasbani trains with the USC coach, he is swimming against three others who are vying for a spot on the Olympic team. If he can finish in the top 12 at the European Championships in March, and ahead of the others on his team, Hasbani will go to the Olympics.

It is in this head-to-head competition that men's swimming and diving head coach Rob Orr said Hasbani really thrives. In practice, Hasbani worked the hardest during head-on-head challenge sets against another swimmer. Orr also noted that most of Hasbani's motivation came from within.

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"He was very intense, focused and an extremely hard worker," coach Orr said, "at least when you got him in the water."

Known for testing how long he could wait to actually take the plunge into the water, Hasbani's lightheartedness and personal motivation was admired by teammates, and he was elected captain in his senior year.

While he enjoys swimming for Israel, Hasbani says he misses the responsibility of being on a team.

"It seems it is more individualistic. We have goals, and we are representing Israel, but on a day-today basis you are training for yourself. You have very individual goals, and if you don't make the team, the rest of Israel doesn't know," Hasbani explained. "With Princeton, if you don't swim your best or fail to do your best, you kind of let the whole team down. This is not the team pressure that I had, and I miss that. I loved swimming in college."

In order to succeed on the international level, Hasbani will have to continue to draw on the characteristics that Orr described and his commitment to the sport. He will also need to continue to improve as he did at Princeton.

"I wasn't thinking about the Olympics at all when I got here," Hasbani said. "I improved so much when I came to Princeton that in high school it wasn't even something I was thinking about."

Today, it is something he thinks about all the time. Though becoming an All-American still seems unreal to him, perhaps Hasbani will have another surreal opportunity just around the corner. If he qualifies at the European Championships in March, another Princetonian could become an Olympian.