Cornwall roots for Olympic swimmer Tyler Clary

CORNWALL — It sounds like a movie trailer: Out of tragedy comes triumph. But this true story rivals any Hollywood film script. The romantic leads in this tale are Cornwall native Caroline Kosciusko and Tyler Clary, who comes from California and attended the University of Michigan — and recently earned a spot on the 2012 United States Olympic swim team. The couple met last summer at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Kosciusko was just out of college. Her cousin, Olympian Eli Bremmer, was attempting to recruit her for the pentathlon team. She agreed to give the “unwatched sport” a try, training seven hours a day in shooting, fencing, horseback riding, swimming and cross-country running. “I just wasn’t getting into some of the aspects of it,” she said. “I tried, but it wasn’t for me.” Swimming is her real love, and she really wanted to talk with some of the swim team hopefuls, but they trained elsewhere. Out one evening, she was introduced to Clary, who impressed her at first only as a swimmer. But a very long chat that night turned into so much more, and their relationship grew, even though they were separated for most of the last year.As last month’sOlympic trials came closer, the big names on the men’s swimming roster were Michael Phelps (briefly teammates with Clary at Michigan) and Ryan Lochte. Three years ago, Clary broke NCAA records held by both men, on consecutive days, but he has been in their shadows since.Two days before the team trials began on June 25, Kosciusko and her mom, Annie, made the long drive to Omaha, Neb., to root for Clary in person. The first day was rough. Clary was running a fever and it showed in his performance. “Then my mom got a phone call. My dad, Skip, had fallen out of his truck at work and had broken his coccyx in seven places. He was at Westchester Medical Center. Mom had to fly back. He couldn’t feel his legs right after the accident and they thought he would be paralyzed.”Meanwhile, Caroline worried poolside and watched her boyfriend come up just shy of a team slot in his first bid. It was beginning to look like a repeat of the 2008 trials. But on Thursday, after the couple had done some (optimistic) clothes shopping for London, he came up with second-place finishes, behind Phelps in the 200-meter butterfly and Lochte in the 200-meter backstroke. He was on the team. The night before, Skip Kosciusko had come home from the hospital. His first day home found him sore but on the way to a full recovery.“It was the most amazing day of my life,” Caroline Kosciusko said. “I was trying to stay hopeful, while everything was looking so bad, and before the day was over, things couldn’t have been better.”While Clary headed for home for a couple of days, Kosciusko made the long drive to Cornwall as quickly as possible, anxious to see her dad. She will head to London July 26, in time for the opening ceremonies the next day. Clary will spend the week prior to the opening in France, where his team will practice together for the first time and adjust to the time zone.No doubt many in Cornwall will be watching their hometown hero “once removed.” Clary competes July 30 through Aug. 2. Finals of his two events will be broadcast on NBC July 31 at 7:48 p.m. and Aug. 2 at 7:46 p.m.As for Kosciusko and Clary, they plan to move to Michigan together after the Olympics — whatever happens there. He will finish his last year of school, majoring in computer science. She will continue with a promising freelance graphic design career.