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Chances are good you’ll hear the name Missy Franklin sometime soon. The dedicated 15-year-old has been notably successful over the past two years as a swimmer for Aurora’s Regis Jesuit High School, champions of the 5A state swimming competition (via the Aurora Sentinel). But Franklin is much more than a local high school star. She’s traveled the world to compete and is on track to make the 2012 U.S. Olympic team, writes the Denver Post.
Before being named the youngest member of the U.S. national team, which will compete in Shanghai in July, Franklin set the National Independent High School Record in the 100-yard backstroke and almost broke the record in freestyle, notes Swimming World Magazine, which chose the 6-foot-1-inch prodigy for its October 2009 cover. “When you see your daughter on the cover of a magazine,” Franklin’s mother says, “that just blew us away.”