JAKOB SCHILLER / Daily News

Tayler Dubrasky

JAKOB SCHILLER / Daily News

Chelsea Franklin

Joe Kaleita/Special to the Daily News

Boys 500-yard relay state champion Tayler Dubrasky, left, of Estero, and runner up Nicholas Caldwell, of Gulf Coast, stand on the podium after receiving their medals in the Class 2A FHSAA Swimming & Diving Finals in Orlando, Fla. on Friday, November 2, 2007.

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The wait — which has accompanied Chelsea Franklin for a sizable chunk of her teenage years — is almost over.

Three years have elapsed since the 17-year-old from Estero qualified for the U.S. Olympic Team Trials.

“Three long years,” she said.

Franklin’s shot at making the U.S. team for the 2008 Summer Olympics will come June 30 in the women’s 400-meter freestyle at the Qwest Center Arena in Omaha, Neb.

Five days later, a pair of Franklin’s teammates from the Gulf Coast Swim Team — Tayler Dubrasky, 18, of Fort Myers, and Nicholas Caldwell, 15, of Naples — will be in the same water vying for precious roster spots in the men’s 1,500-meter freestyle.

The talented trio — each won high school state championships last fall — face the daunting task of needing to be one of the top two swimmers in their events in order to secure a bid to China in August.

Scaling the Great Wall immersed in Vaseline might be easier.

“(Time Trials) is a step below the Olympic games,” said GCST director Don Henshaw, who coaches Franklin, Dubrasky and Caldwell, “but in a lot of respects it’s almost tougher just trying to make our U.S. team. A lot of times the kids swim faster at Trials than they do at the Olympic games because the competition is so tough at our Olympic Trials.”

Henshaw acknowledges that his swimmers’ chances of making the Olympic team this year are slim. Their best years in the pool are still to come.

“We’re going to go out there with that idea that we’re going for experience. We’re going to race and see what we can do,” said Henshaw. “For the boys, making that top eight in the mile (to reach the finals on July 6) is going to be tough. They’re going to have to drop about 30 seconds — at least — off their best to make that time. For Chelsea, it’s experience. See if we can go under the seed time and walk out of there with a smile.”

Henshaw’s swimmers agreed that what happens in Omaha, won’t stay in Omaha.

“This year I’m just going for the experience,” said Dubrasky, a former Estero High School standout who will swim for the University of Florida starting this fall. “If it happens, that’s great. I’m not holding back by any means, but it’s just the experience. In the next four years, I want to get top two.”

“Stranger things have happened, but I’m probably not going to make it,” added Caldwell, who will enter his sophomore season at Gulf Coast High School in August. “Basically, I want to go for the experience and know what it’s like to go to the Olympic Trials. If things continue how they’re going, I’ll be back.”

Franklin, who is battling a back injury, knows what it’s like to wait for the Trials. She qualified at age 14, perhaps too young at the time to appreciate the significance of her accomplishment. ?“When I first got my Trial cut, I didn’t even know it was a Trial cut for like the first week after,” recalled Franklin, who is working as a lifeguard at San Carlos Community Pool this summer.

That’s the venue where Gulf Coast Swim Team was created under Henshaw’s guidance 10 years ago. Franklin, Dubrasky and Caldwell represent the program’s first Time Trial qualifiers.

Even if he doesn’t make the Olympic team, a solid showing by Caldwell could land him in the World Youth Championships that will be held July 8-13 in Monterrey, Mexico.

All the buzz about the Olympics and Time Trials is new to Caldwell. His memory of watching the 2004 Olympics as an 11-year-old is a little fuzzy.

“Last time I was kind of too young. I really don’t remember much of it,” he said. “Now I can fully understand everything that’s going on.”

When Franklin was a member of the 2005-06 U.S. National Junior Team, she and her teammates were glued to a replay of the U.S.A.’s dramatic victory in the men’s 800 free relay at the 2004 Olympics.

“We watched it over and over. That was pretty exciting. I still get goose bumps about it,” she said.

There was barely a bump in the water when GCST was born. Henshaw’s first team was comprised of just six swimmers, but he never employed doubts about starting the new club.

“At the time, there was only one team in town. I felt like we could start Gulf Coast Swim Team and give people another option. We’ve been successful,” he said.

Henshaw, 51, is proof that oil and water can mix just fine. In addition to his duties as a swim coach/director, he is part owner of the Edison Oil Company in Fort Myers.

The Henshaw family sports deep swimming roots. Henshaw’s wife, Connie, and daughter, Jen Seluk, are coaches for GCST. Jen also coaches the swim teams at Estero High. Another daughter, Heather Fort, is a swim coach in Illinois, but she returns to GCST each summer to help. Both Jen and Heather were standouts swimmers at Cypress Lake High School in the 1990s.

Don will be the lone Henshaw headed to Omaha while his wife and daughters stay behind to coach the other 70 or so young swimmers in the program.

Franklin and Caldwell, and some members of their families, will spend a week at the Trials. Franklin should have a plenty of support from about a dozen relatives who will make the trip across the state line from Iowa, where her parents grew up. After Trials, Franklin plans to take three weeks off from swimming in order to rest her back.

Dubrasky’s stay in Omaha will be brief. He’ll make the trip solo because he has to sandwich the Trials between the start of summer classes at UF.

At 6-foot-3 and 150 pounds, Dubrasky hopes Gator cooking — and weight lifting — will help add muscle to his frame in preparation for future Olympic bids.

“In two years,” he said. “I hope to be around 185.”

Franklin, who will enter her senior year at Cypress Lake in August, is in the midst of perusing potential college choices. She wants to stay in the South, but not in the state.

“I was born in Florida. I’ve lived in Florida for so long,” she said. “I’m ready to experience something new.”

Which is what she will do in Omaha when her wait will finally be over.

“Now it seems a little more real,” she said. “I’m excited.”