Christmas came early in Knoxville. With an already stellar recruiting class in place for the 2004-05 season, Lady Vol Head Swimming Coach Dan Colella announced Thursday that Knoxville native and 2000 USA Swimming Olympic gold medalist Julia Stowers (West H.S.) has joined the squad. The Tennessee native comes to the Big Orange after compiling an impressive resume in both national and international competition.

"We were already excited about the coming year with our incoming freshmen, so having Julia join the program is just absolutely icing on the cake," Colella said."She will bring such a dynamic range of possibilities for us during the dual meet season as well as during the championship season. Her club coach [Gardner Howland] has done an amazing job with her for the last decade, and we are just proud to have the opportunity for her to be wearing the Orange and White this year."

Stowers was a member of the 2000 USA Swimming Olympic team that competed in Sydney, Australia. She earned a gold medal in the 800-meter free relay, swimming in the preliminary round. Following her Olympic participation, Stowers attended the University of Georgia, swimming for one year in 2001.

In 1999, Stowers swam with the USA Swimming Pan American Games Team, earning a silver medal in the 800-meter free relay and taking fourth place in both the 200-meter and 400-meter freestyle events. In 1997, she also competed with the USA Swimming National Junior Team, doing so after a prep career she in which she was ranked as high as 10th in the world in the 1500-meter freestyle.

Most recently, she competed at the 2004 USA National Championships in August. Stowers, competing in four events, took seventh place in the 200-meter freestyle, earned a fifth-place finish in the 400-meter freestyle and snagged a pair of third-place finishes in the 800-meter and 1500-meter freestyles.