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Kaia Casey had some lofty goals coming into her long course summer swimming season, and reaching some of them wasn’t easy, but she stuck with it and hit her milestones just one week apart.

Casey, who is from Chisago City, but swims out of the Great Wolf Swim Club in Brooklyn Center, broke two state records in the 11-12 year old category in a week’s span in late July and early August.

On July 27, she broke the 800 meter freestyle swim in her age category with a time of 9:41.45, besting a record that had stood for 15 years. “Right as I finished, all my friends cheered for me and went crazy, but I thought I missed it by a second,” Kaia said. “But, when I got out of the pool, my friends said ‘Darn it, did you not hear us screaming for you? You obviously got the record!’, so that was fun.”

Then, at a meet in Lenexa, Kansas exactly one week later, Casey swam the mile — or 1,500 meter — in a time of 18:27.86, breaking the previous record by more than 10 seconds that was set in 2017. Casey had just swam the mile at an event five days prior and dropped 25 seconds off that time to smash the record. “For that one, my friends were really excited for me again, and I realized I got it this time, so it was really fun and exciting!”

Swimming was always a part of Casey’s life. Her parents live on South Lindstrom Lake, and they enrolled her in swimming classes early just to make sure she could handle herself if she fell in the lake. She also had two sisters who were accomplished high school swimmers themselves for Chisago Lakes — Amanda and Nicole Bean — and she grew up around the pool watching them.

Her parents, Missi and Tyler, noticed at an early age that she had a lot more endurance than the other kids in the pool.

“She was just a natural,” Missi said. “She never stopped moving in the pool and always had high energy. She could just keep going, and going and going.”

That naturally turned into Casey swimming competitively. She wanted to start club swimming in 2019, but COVID put a stop to that plan. She didn’t start swimming competitively until April of 2021, but the delay didn’t hinder her abilities, as evidenced by the recently broken records.

“Things started to come together for her during her short course season in the winter,” Missi explained of Kaia’s ascension. “She was dropping a lot of time off of her 500 freestyle and getting really good at it. We thought she could break that event’s state record, but she fell just short. However, she did win the state title in her age group in the 500, and that’s when we knew she might be getting ready to have a really good long course season.”

The accomplished middle schooler is nationally ranked  in the top 10 in her age group of 12 year olds in the 400 freestyle, the 800 freestyle, and the 1,500 freestyle and is ranked 11th in the 400 meter individual medley. She trains five times a week in the pool for two hours each session, and has a basic dryland two hour session each week, as well. That may seem like a lot, but Kaia embraces it. “I just really have a lot of fun swimming,” she said. “I feel like it’s really fun to be in the water and doing stuff like that. It’s a really fun sport! I also have a lot of friends from swimming that I share other interests with too, so I can really get along with them and make lifelong friends.”

Casey, who will be starting seventh grade at the Chisago Lakes Middle School next week, plans on swimming for the Wildcats as an eighth grader next year. Although high school’s longest individual event is the 500 meter freestyle, Casey has some lofty times to chase down in her career. Sisters Brogan and Thomi Lee, who swam with Casey’s sisters, both went on to swim at the Division I level at Rutgers, continuously pushed the envelope in the 500 meter freestyle that still stands for the Chisago Lakes girls swim team. 

Thomi won a state title in the event as a junior, and Brogan would’ve won the state title in nearly any other era, but she swam during Marisa Wood’s record breaking run in the long distance events. Her mom said Kaia would like to get her name up on the Chisago Lakes’ record board and earn a Minnesota State High School championship.

But, Casey also has her sights set on the biggest stage. “Her long term goals are that she’d really like to get invited to Olympic trials,” Missi said. “There are a few kids form Minnesota that will be at trials this year, and we’re hoping four years down the road she can make it.” 

When asked who her favorite Olympian is, Kaia shyly responded by saying, “It’s pretty weird for me, but I’m not like a big fan of watching swimming! I do like the distance events though and seeing how Katie Ledecky swims. She has the same stroke as me.”

Kaia has a long way to go in her career, but if she stays on her current trajectory, she may have more similarities to Ledecky than just their stroke when all is said and done.

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