Kelsi Dahlia throws her muscular, 5' 11" frame forward, shoulders and upper back flexing, legs thumping out a furious kick cadence, her body angled like a human javelin. She is moving with the combination of speed and power that has made her an Olympic gold medalist and America’s fastest female 100-meter butterflyer for the past five years.
She goes nowhere. There is nowhere to go.
At her house in southeast Louisville, Dahlia is confined to a nine-foot-by-12-foot portable pool —less than one-tenth as long as a lane in a 50-meter Olympic pool. A harness, attached to a curving bar hanging above, hugs her waist.