Six weeks before swimmer Jacqui Levere was scheduled to fly to Israel for the Maccabiah Games, she was doubled over in pain, throwing up in the bathroom at 11 o’clock at night.
The 16-year-old was rushed to the emergency room at Stanford University Hospital and scheduled for an appendectomy early the next morning.
“We didn’t think she’d be able to go to Israel,” said her mom, PattiSue Levere.
But, in typical Jacqui fashion, she was back in the pool within a week.
“She couldn’t even swim 25 minutes the first day back, but she was so happy to be back in the water she didn’t mind not feeling well,” PattiSue said.
Within a few weeks, the Los Altos teen had worked her way back into her usual three-hour swim practice so she’d be ready for the Maccabiah Games.
And ready she was. Jacqui won medals in seven of her eight races, including two golds (100- and 200-meter breaststroke) and five silvers (200 and 400 freestyle, 400 individual medley, and 400 and 800 freestyle relay). She just missed out on another medal, taking fourth in the 200 individual medley.
“You just put on your fast suit and get in the water and start feeling good,” she said. “They had some nice disco music that played every time we got on the blocks. It was the same song every time, which was a little annoying, but it was more like, ‘OK. The song is playing. It’s our race.’ ”
Jacqui previously swam in the Pan American Maccabi Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the JCC Maccabi Games and in Orange County and Vancouver.
This was her first time at the Maccabiah Games in Israel. After spending 12 days touring Israel with her teammates, she put on her game face for the competition, held July 12 to 23. The Maccabiah Games, which have been called the “Jewish Olympics,” happen once every four years in Israel.
Jacqui was one of 23 members of the Junior Team USA (ages 13 to 16). Olympian Jason Lezak was a teammate in the older age bracket.
“That was really cool,” she said of having Lezak on Team USA. “One day I went to a practice that not a lot of people showed up for, but he was there and swam in my lane.”
Jacqui wasn’t always such a fish. After her first swimming lessons at a JCC summer camp as a 4-year-old, she decided she liked the water but hated putting her face below the surface.
Months later, at a Chanukah party, a family friend was showing off his swimming medals.
“I decided I wanted some,” Jacqui said. “At 4, it seemed the coolest thing ever.”
Mom told her that she’d have to get her face in the water to take the swimming test.
“And she said, ‘OK.’ She’s always been willful. If she decides she’s going to do something, she’ll do it,” PattiSue said.
Jacqui took lessons at the YMCA and the following summer went to a swimming camp, where she’d swim twice a day for two months.
At 6, she joined a year-round swim team. While a student at Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School in Palo Alto, she swam after school at the Ladera Oaks swim club in Portola Valley. That first year “she was the youngest kid on the swim team, barely 6, a tiny little thing,” PattiSue said.
She went to a public middle school and then to St. Francis High School in Mountain View, where she’ll be a junior in the fall. Only this year did she join a different swim team, one that would allow her skills to improve even more.
During the school year, Jacqui practices eight times a week — every day except Sunday and twice on Monday and Saturday. Most practices involve one hour of land exercise and two hours in the pool.
“In swimming, if you want to be really good, you have to put everything into it,” Jacqui said.
She’s hoping that attitude and talent — and zero risk of appendicitis — will get her to her dream of the 2012 Olympic trials.