Doral’s Juan Mora, Cutler Bay’s Olivia Dinehart at Miami-Dade’s Swimmers of the Year
It was a good year to swim the breaststroke in Miami-Dade County as both Juan Mora and Olivia Dinehart won 2021 state titles in the 100-meter breaststroke in Stuart.
The two champions are now also the Miami Herald’s Miami-Dade County Swimmers of the Year.
“This year, everything kind of went as planned,” Dinehart said.
Mora, a senior at Doral Academy, won his Class 4A championship with a time of 54.71 seconds and added a fifth-place finish in the 100 butterfly, plus a ninth-place finish as part of Doral’s 200 medley relay.
Mora’s 25.03-second split in the relay was the second fastest in the race.
Dinehart, a junior at Cutler Bay, won her Class 1A championship with a time of 1:02.28, finished third in the 200 individual medley, and added a third-place finish with the Sharks’ 200 medley relay and a fourth-place finish with their 400 freestyle relay.
The Cutler Bay girls, which only sent six swimmers to the meet, also finished fifth overall as a team in 1A.
“We’re a small team,” Dinehart said, “so to be able to come in fifth is a huge accomplishment.”
Both Mora’s and Dinehart’s titles came after close calls in recent years.
Mora was the runner-up in 4A in 2020 and came back to finally get his elusive state championship as a senior.
Dinehart was the runner-up in 2020, too, and finished third in 2019 as a freshman. In 2021, she was seeded third and spent most of the race in third place. She trailed going into the final 25 meters before storming from behind to win her first state championship.
“I was just like, Get to the wall first,” Dinehart said. “I saw it ... and I was like just finish your kick on every single stroke.”
While Mora’s career with the Firebirds is done, Dinehart will have time to add even more hardware to her trophy case.
On her list of goals are four more medals.
“Keep the championship in the 100 breast, hopefully still come in the top three in the 200 IM,” she said, “and then get our relays up to top three, for sure.”
