Emily Silver.

Emily Silver, 2004. ©Ryan Schierling

It's always an odd feeling when, many years later, you see someone you've photographed before and haven't seen since. In this instance, I got that strange feeling when I saw the women's Olympic 4x100-meter freestyle relay preliminary heats this weekend. Bainbridge Island's Emily Silver, who I photographed more times than I can recall during her decorated high school swimming career from 2000 to 2004, is all grown up and helped the United States 4x100 freestyle relay team to the Olympic finals, despite having surgery on a broken hand after coming into the wall too hard during a sprint on July 5.

The team, sans Silver after the prelims, went on to win a silver medal in the finals. Emily's folks, Bob and Mary Sue have blogged about their daughter's Olympic progress over at Bainbridge to Beijing. Congratulations to Emily and the Silver family!