Throughout the past few months at Westborough High School, a 6’4” sophomore phenom by the name of Ary Jain has taken the school by storm. Despite having just moved from New Delhi, India to Westborough this year, he has definitely made his mark. 

Jain says, “For the first two months, it was tricky to adapt because English is my second language, and to adjust to the new climate but I got used to it quickly.”

As a kid, Jain always had a passion for sports. Whether it was tennis, baseball, basketball, or swimming, Jain was frequently out and about, getting as much physical activity as he could. Despite playing many sports, swimming always stuck with him. Usually, when people talk about the sports they are good at, it usually begins with a story about how they fell in love with the sport. Jain was quite the opposite. Initially, he was afraid of the water and wanted nothing to do with it. Once he finally overcame his fear, he realized how obsessed he really was with the sport and was motivated to push himself to be the best. 

At a young age, Jain began competing in competitive swim meets. He was on India’s Junior National Swim Team in which he qualified and won the junior nationals 3 times. Despite Jain’s success in India, he began to get bored of the sport as there were not many competitive events that challenged him. Then, in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic hit, which made competitions nearly impossible to take place. 

Once he came to the United States, the higher competition that he preferred inspired him to get back into swimming and to get a competitive feeling back he had lost. During his meets, Jain says “I love the energy that comes from the sport, especially when you are standing on the block about to go and everyone is cheering for you, it is super hype and it’s when I’m the happiest and ready to go.” 

Before races, in preparation, he eats a ton of cereal before the meet and just does his thing. He doesn’t let the competitive energy and nerves affect him as he is very social and talks with his competitors. He doesn’t really mentally prepare before meets, he just trusts himself. 

Jain says that he owes his success to his coach from India. His coach has been with him since he was 8 and stuck with him until he moved to the U.S. To Jain, he was like a second father who took a big role in shaping him to be the swimmer and person he is today. 

After discussing his current success, Jain shared what his future plans were as a swimmer, in terms of competing at the collegiate level. “It all depends on how I perform next year. I am talking to different coaches and clubs for recruiting this year and next year is when I’ll begin talking to colleges,” he shares. 

Jain believes that junior year will be the deciding factor in his chances of competing in college swimming. If he competes well next year during his junior season, he will have a good shot at continuing his athletic career. For now, he isn’t thinking too much about it since most recruiting starts junior year. 

In addition to taking up swimming at the school, Jain also has a passion for basketball, which started when he was a kid. In India, there were two seasons – summer, which was for swimming, and winter, where he focused on basketball. Jain worked hard in both sports, however since both swim and basketball are in the same season in US schools, He had to make the choice between one or the other. Jain chose swimming, however, rec ball gave him the opportunity to continue to play basketball, but in a fun, less competitive environment. 

Jain’s main persona is to have fun and be in hype environments in his sports and rec ball definitely brings that energy. As Jain says, “ It brings the hype energy like swimming which is why I love it.”

To him, rec ball is more fun than competitive basketball and he loves the energy he brings and creates in swimming, which is why he does both sports.

At the beginning of February, Jain tore a tendon in his leg which would make his state performance uncertain. When asked about how he felt, he wasn’t worried in the slightest, only saying how he may have minor losses in his times but overall shouldn’t shift his state ranking too much. 

Jain competes in 2 of the shortest events, the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard freestyle. Jain’s goal was to be top 16 in both of his events which will give him an extra advantage in his ranking next year. He accomplished this goal, getting 13th in states for the 50-yard and 10th in 100-yard.