Metamora grad Anna Peplowski is ready to realize her Olympic dream this week

METAMORA, Ill. (WMBD/WYZZ) — The Summer Olympics are finally here.

It’s been a long wait for Anna Peplowski. A Metamora High School graduate, she made the U.S. Olympic team in mid-June and waited nearly six weeks to travel to Paris.

After a training camp in North Carolina in early July and another in Croatia last week, Peplowski and her American teammates arrived at the Olympic Village on Monday. She has been thinking about the Olympics since she was a little girl watching the games in central Illinois.

“I think every young swimmer’s dream is to go to the Olympics. At 8 years old, at 15, if they stick it out all the way to college,” Peplowski said. “It’s everybody’s dream to go to the Olympics.”

Now she’s going to make that dream come true. Although she’s been thinking about the Olympics for years, Peplowski says making Team USA didn’t become a goal until her Indiana University coach, Ray Looze, challenged her to make the national team when she was a freshman in college.

“It’s really amazing that I didn’t get that opportunity once. Since then, I’ve always thought about that meeting I had (with Looze). I kept it in the back of my mind,” Peplowski said. “I was just thinking about the opportunities that could come from it.”

Peplowski will swim with the U.S. 4×200 relay team. She was part of the U.S. 4×200 relay team last summer that won silver at the World Championships in Japan.