A dream for almost any athlete is to make it to the Olympics and be able to represent their country on a global scale.

For former Rome High School swimmer Alex Coville, that dream could be coming true sooner than he thought.

At the 2007 ConocoPhillips USA Swimming National Championships in Indianapolis, Ind., last week, Coville qualified for the US Olympic time trials in both the 100-meter and 50-meter freestyle events while competing against some of the top talent in the world.

His top performance of the meet came Saturday in the 50 where he posted a time of 22.55 seconds, a personal best for the incoming sophomore at Stanford.

“He had a good swim,” said Joey Powers, Coville’s high school coach who watched his former student’s seventh-place performance online.

Coville’s training partner and Stanford teammate, Ben Wildman-Tobriner, won the 50 free in 21.80. The San Francisco native was a senior this past season.

“That’s giving Alex something to look forward to,” Powers said of Wildman-Tobriner’s performance. “Alex is performing better than Ben did at that age.”

Coville came in 33rd in the 100 free with a time of 51.03 but still finished ahead of the qualifying time for the Olympic trials, which will be held next June in Omaha, Neb., before the 2008 Summer Olympics are held in Beijing in August.

“I talked to him last week and he said he really had 2012 in his sights,” Powers said. “I don’t know if he expected to do as well as he did in this meet.”

In Omaha, he’ll compete to be one of the swimmers selected to be on the United States National Team.

“The cool thing is that he’s only 19,” Powers said. “He’s got a huge amount of time to qualify for the Olympics.”