The hard work Keaton Jones put in with the Valley’s Swim Neptune paid off and the 19-year-old will showcase his skills in the Paris Games. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
PARIS – Keaton Jones is making waves and breaking ground. He is believed to be the first swimmer in 16 years to come through Arizona age-group competition and reach the Olympic Games.
The Higley High School graduate, 19, will represent the United States in the men’s 200-meter backstroke Wednesday after finishing second to two-time Olympic gold medalist Ryan Murphy at the Olymic Trials in June.
He swims at the University of California, Berkeley, but his skills are rooted in Arizona. In addition to dominating the local scene, he’s broken Guinness World Records in ice swimming, helped raise over $24,000 for first responders and shattered numerous records at his high school.
At 8, Jones joined Swim Neptune, one of the largest and best-known swim schools in Arizona. That’s where he met Joe Zemaitis and Alex Sherman, two coaches who would train him for the next 10 years.
Jones was a break-out star the moment he hit the water, said Zemaitis, who added Jones was “just one of those kids that took advantage of every opportunity he had.”
The opportunities were just routine practices and frequent swim meets that Swim Neptune scheduled, and Jones dominated those.
He is talking about the other swims, the ones that don’t show up on a stat sheet.
Every year, Zemaitis would organize a group of athletes to swim from Alcatraz Island to the city of San Francisco, a roughly 1.25-mile swim in the middle of the bay.
Zemaitis remembers a 10-year-old Jones saying he was going to complete the swim.
“I think one thing that really makes Keaton special is he’s always looking for the challenge,” Zemaitis said. “Where a lot of people are looking at ‘How do you make this easier?’ He’s saying, ‘How do you make it harder?’”
Jones completed the Alcatraz swim numerous times, and even swam it once with his mother and younger sister.
Keaton made swimming in the salty water and irregular currents of the ocean look doable. It was the icy waters of Samoëns, France, that would have, in theory, been the biggest challenge.
With an outside temperature of about 35 degrees and a water temperature of under 40 degrees, the circumstances of the International Ice Swimming Association 5th World Championship in January 2023 would have made anyone shiver at the thought of touching the water. Not Jones.
Not only did Jones brave the conditions to swim strong, but he also broke four ice swimming world records in the process. Oh, and he got his picture in the Guinness World Records book for swimming the fastest recorded men’s 100-meter freestyle ice swim.
“Like I said,” Zemaitis said, “always up for a challenge, always willing to push himself and be uncomfortable with practice and in these situations.”
The event doubled as Jones’ first international competition, which Zemaitis believes will help Jones when he’s swimming in an “unfamiliar environment with a whole new set of challenges” like France.
“He had to process and approach and overcome and succeed,” Zemaitis said.
Keaton Jones advanced to the Paris Olympics after finishing second in the men’s 200-meters backstroke at the U.S. Olympic Team Swimming Trials in Indianapolis. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
Jones didn’t just leave an impact on the coaches and program at Swim Neptune, however. Jennifer Accra, the coach of Higley High School’s swim team, describes her former swimmer as “the perfect role model of what an athlete is.”
Accra called Jones “a respectful swimmer,” with “a different level” of sporting mindset and work ethic. She said he was “golden.”
A 2023 graduate, Jones broke eight individual event records at Higley. He also swam on three relay teams that broke school records.
While Accra was beyond impressed at Jones’ swims, she was even more impressed with his humility.
“He doesn’t like to have that spotlight on him,” she said. “He just does it with grace and moves on to the next great thing.”
Accra told the story of Jones’ first day at high school practice, when he joined the team and didn’t introduce himself because he had “freshman year nerves.”
“He actually jumped on the side of the pool where like all the beginners were instead of with all our senior swimmers,” Accra said, smiling. “One of the seniors that year cut out during warm up, pulled him out of that area and pulled him into their lane so that he could swim.”
Jones also pushed himself academically, another trait Accra, a teacher at the high school, found particularly admirable.
“I graduated from Eastern Michigan, (so) I kind of gave him crap, like he should have went to Michigan because Michigan has a lot of athletes, too,” Accra said. “But I was like, ‘OK, I’ll settle for Cal. You’re good. So yeah, he’s a very smart kid.”
Accra watched Jones’ 200-meter backstroke performance in the U.S. Olympic Trials and saw the moment when he took second place to Murphy by a slim .28 seconds.
“I was screaming at the TV just like I would if I was on the side of a deck,” Accra said. “He deserves every fame, every accomplishment, every winning thing that he’s doing.”
She said Jones has the strength to beat Murphy when the two meet on the Olympic stage in Paris.
As talented as Jones is in the water, he might be an even better person out of the water, those close to him say.
In June of 2020, months after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down most of the world, Jones and a few of his swim friends were practicing with Zemaitis at the Moon Valley Country Club in Phoenix. They wanted to create a challenge for themselves while helping donate to a good cause.
That’s how the 24-hour lap challenge was born.
Swimmers would swim one mile every hour for 24 consecutive hours to raise money for charity. Zemaitis did the swim with them.
Jones and other swimmers completed 25 miles of swimming (they picked up pace to swim two miles in the last hour). The event helped fundraise over $20,000 for first responders, Zemaitis said.
“That was a weird time but … he still wanted to be there and he wanted to get better every day … even when every other avenue was closed that summer,” Zemaitis said. “I think that speaks a lot for just the kind of mental toughness he’s shown every step of the way.”
In his 10 years with USA Swimming in Arizona, Jones broke the 200-yard backstroke, 100-yard IM, 200-yard IM and 400-yard IM records in the 13-14 age group. He also broke the 50-meter, 100-meter and 200-meter backstroke in the same category.
In 2019, he broke the national record for the fastest 200-meter backstroke in the 13-14 age group.
In punching his ticket to Paris, he becomes the first Arizona-born age group swimmer in 16 years to reach the Olympics. The last to do it was Breeja Larson, who swam in the 2012 Olympic Games.
At 19, he’s also one of the youngest swimmers at this year’s Olympics. He is one of three teenage swimmers competing for Team USA. Claire Weinstein and Thomas Heilman are the others, both 17.
Though young, Jones won’t let nerves get the best of him, Zemaitis said.
“The Olympic Games is a next major step up and it’s truly the pinnacle of the sport,” Zemaitis said. “He’s going to be ready when the lights go on in Paris.”