Elliko Heimbach of Yokota High School helped her swim club’s relay teams capture one gold and one silver medal last weekend in the Japan Olympic Committee’s Junior Olympic Cup Spring Age-Group National.

Heimbach, a 17-year-old junior, was swimming for the Kaneda Swim Club of Koganei, east of Yokota Air Base, in the short-course meet at Tatsumi International Swim Center. She helped Kaneda win the 400-meter freestyle relay and place second in the 400-meter medley relay.

Kaneda was timed in 4 minutes, 12.18 seconds in the medley, .56 seconds behind the winning time; and 3:50.75 in the freestyle, ahead of the second-place time of 3:51.27.

It was her final tuneup before attending the Japan senior national championships and Olympic trials on April 20, also at Tatsumi. Heimbach will attempt to qualify for the Athens Summer Games in the 100-meter butterfly.

In last weekend’s championship, she swam the 100-meter butterfly in 1:02.31, a second off her best, finishing 11th. She’ll have to place in the top two for a berth on the Japanese Olympic team. She placed 14th in the 100-meter freestyle (57.74).

Still, Heimbach said, she’s approaching the Olympic trials with a “positive attitude.” Her father Dr. Rick Heimbach, is an educational technologist at Yokota East Elementary School, and her mother, Naomi, is a Japanese citizen, qualifying Elliko for both the Japan and U.S. trials.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she said. “There will be a lot of older people, who are more high-level. It will be fun.”

That the Olympic trials will be conducted in a 50-meter course at Tatsumi boosts her chances, she said: “I think my long course will be a lot better than I did at short course.”

Heimbach burst onto the Japan swim scene in August 1997 at Tatsumi, taking golds in the 50-meter freestyle (29.03 seconds) and 50-meter butterfly (31.44) in the 20th Anniversary Japan Olympic Committee Junior Olympic Cup.

She finished 1997 ranked No. 1 in her 9-10 age group by USA Swimming in the 100-meter freestyle, out of her home state of record, Pennsylvania.

More medals followed in future Japan Junior Olympic meets, along with appearances two years ago in the Japan National Junior High Championships and the prestigious Kokutai national sports festival.

A year ago, the elder Heimbach took a one-year sabbatical in California. There, Elliko helped Irvine High School, one of the California Interscholastic Federation’s powerhouse teams, win a pair of national relay championships.

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