Olympic Gold Medalist Cullen Jones Freestyles a Few Lessons at the Bed-Stuy YMCA

The Bed-Stuy Piranhas just got another visit from an Olympic swimmer yesterday, bringing the young championship team closer and closer to a future gilded in gold.

Only three months ago, five-time Olympic gold medalist to share with its young swimmers a few tips on what it takes to go Olympic Gold.

Yesterday, the lucky tikes – who are local championship swimmers themselves -- got another big brush with greatness, when American freestyle sprint swimmer and Olympic gold medalist Cullen Jones dropped in to impart a few lessons of his own.

“Just changing the small tiny things can make the big difference,” Jones, a New York native, told the giddy, wide-eyed group of young swimmers. “Because in swimming, you don’t win by big margins, you often will win by a tiny hair.”

The kids sat poolside in a big group and were given 15 minutes to ask Jones questions about his motivation, his training and his technique.

“How old were you when you started swimming?” asked one Piranha.

“Actually, I started swimming at age five, after I almost drowned in pool at Dorney Park,” answered the 27-year-old Jones. “So my mom decided to enroll me in swimming classes. I started and never looked back."

Jones then became an age-group swimmer at Metro Express, a club team at the Jewish Community Center in West Orange, NJ, and then went on to swim with the Jersey Gators Swim Club in Cranford, New Jersey.

He turned professional in the summer of 2006, at age 22, after signing with Nike  and burst onto the scene shortly after at the 2006 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships where he set a meet record in the 50-meter freestyle with a time of 21.84.

He also swam a leg in the world record-breaking 4×100 m freestyle relay, along with Michael Phelps, Jason Lezak and Garrett Weber-Gale and then went on to win a gold medal in the same relay with the same teammates at the 2007 World Aquatics Championships.

Jones is only the second African-American to hold or share a world record (4×100 m freestyle relay) in swimming, after Anthony Ervin and is the third African-American to make the US Olympic swimming team. In the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, he won a gold medal in the 4×100 m freestyle relay in a world record time of 3:08.24 with Michael Phelps, Jason Lezak and Garrett Weber-Gale. And in 2009, Jones set the American record in the 50-meter freestyle at the U.S. National Championships in Indianapolis, IN.

Jones told the young swimmers he trains six days a week for six to eight hours a day, treating his profession like a full-time job.

After the brief Q&A, the kids jumped right into the pool where they worked on shortening their time on kick-turns when racing from one end of the pool to the other. No, Jones did not jump in with the young swimmers. He did just what a coach would do and observed and gave directions from the sidelines.

“It’s amazing to be here; I don’t take the job lightly,” said Jones. “I’m definitely happy that I can inspire kids, because that was me. I see myself in these kids. And I feel honored to be able to come here and share something positive that will help lead them to becoming better swimmers.”

This was the third time meeting Cullen for 15-year-old Sharice Dodson, a Piranha. She said she met the Olympic swimmer twice before with Michael Phelps and his relay teammates. “I’m still very excited,” said Dodson. “It encourages us to become better and shows us different techniques because every Olympian has a different idea on how to perfect their stroke, and I just am happy we can get tips on how to be the best.”

So that’s not one, but two times an Olympian has taken time out of their busy schedule to trek down to a modest little swimming pool at the YMCA in the heart of Bed-Stuy. Don’t be surprised if one (or maybe more) of these talented swimmers ends up a future Olympian.

“I’m really excited to see that this team has progressed a lot since I left,” said Valentina Monroy, a Bed-Stuy Piranha alumna. “Seeing Cullen Jones, someone you don’t see everyday be able to tell us what to do, tell us the hard work that swimming involves hopefully will encourage these kids to keep swimming and not cry Saturday mornings when they have to give up and come practice.”

Today, Monroy, 19, is the captain of her swim team at Brooklyn College, where she swims the 200-meter freestyle, (2:10).

Yep, something in the air definitely smells a lot like the Olympics.