Renny Richmond is only 17. But he is already a big fish swiftly swimming toward bigger ponds with even bigger fish.

Richmond, a junior at Maui’s Seabury Hall, will be using the state high school swimming championships, which begin Friday at the Kihei Aquatic Center, as a steppingstone in preparation for the biggest challenge of his career: the U.S. trials in four months at Omaha, Neb., for the summer Olympic Games in London.

Seven months ago, at the age of 16, Richmond joined the ranks of the nation’s elite prep swimmers when he qualified for the Olympic trials in the 100-meter butterfly by winning the state 15-16 age-group championship with a time of 55.20 seconds, nine-hundredths of a second under the Olympic qualifying standard. A month later, against tougher competition on a bigger stage — the Junior National Championships at Stanford University — Richmond lowered his time to a personal best of 53.88 — the fifth-best time in his age group in U.S. history — as he won the junior national title.

"I was just doing my thing. Until then, I didn’t really realize I was a part of this group (of the top U.S. swimmers)," recalled Richmond, who swam in the U.S. Championships at Stanford a few days before the Junior Nationals. "That was a really cool feeling."

Richmond will be the first Hawaii prep swimmer to dive into the highly competitive U.S. Olympic trials since Caleb Rowe (Baldwin 2001, Cal 2005) did so 12 years ago in the 100-meter breaststroke, achieving a ranking of 46th of 83 competitors. In 2008, then-Punahou junior Christel Simms, who now swims for USC, met the Olympic qualifying times for both the 50- and 100-meter freestyle; she bypassed the U.S. trials and instead decided to swim for the Philippines at the Beijing Games to gain Olympic experience.

Thoughts now of the Olympic trials can be a bit distracting, Richmond admitted. But to keep himself sharply focused on the looming two-day state championship meet, Richmond and his coaches have set ambitious goals for him at states: to break two national high school records.

Richmond, the two-time defending state champion and state record holder in the 100-yard butterfly (48.04 set in 2011), will aim to shatter the national mark in that event — 47.08. If he falls short of that, he could still set the record for a swimmer from an independent/private school — 47.10.

Richmond will not defend his 200-yard freestyle state crown. Instead, he will swim the 50-yard freestyle and target the 19.74 national record for independent/private school swimmers. The NISCA record for a public school swimmer is 19.43. At a minimum, Richmond wants to get his time under 20 seconds, which would break the state record of 20.46 set in 2007 by Kealakehe’s Daniel Coakley.

"I don’t think there are too many swimmers out there who have the work ethic and commitment to his sport that Renny has," said Seabury Hall coach Ryan Walsh, who has also coached in Southern California, an incubator of swim talent. "He’s an example of how hard work can pay off. I certainly like his attitude, his commitment and his talent, heart and intangibles."

One of Richmond’s key intangibles, said his club coach, Tom Popdan of the Lahaina Swim Club, "is his special ability to perform when it matters the most. He always goes beyond what others may believe he can do."

Richmond’s own explanation: "I don’t like to lose, not even in practice."

Walsh said Richmond compares favorably to Vladimir Morozov, the former Russian national team member who swam for Torrance (Calif.) High School when Walsh was one of the coaches there.

"As fast as Vladimir is, Renny was doing times as a sophomore that Vladimir was doing as a senior," Walsh said, taking note of their times in the 100 butterfly. Morozov is now swimming collegiately at USC.

When Richmond was a young boy, swimming wasn’t his first love. Surfing was. But his father, Ron Richmond, insisted he become a proficient swimmer first.

"He was concerned for my safety. If something happened while I was surfing, he wanted to be sure that I could swim away. He didn’t want me to drown while surfing," the younger Richmond said.

So Richmond began surfing and swimming for fun. By the time he was 8, he was swimming competitively. But through his preteen years, Richmond wasn’t a particularly distinguished competitive swimmer.

That all began to change when Richmond, at age 13, joined the Lahaina club and came under the tutelage of Popdan, who previously coached at Temple and the University of Virginia and who swam collegiately for Villanova.

Popdan, who has led several mainland swimmers to the Olympic trials, began laying the foundation for his breakout success, Richmond said.

Moreover, he added, "I started caring a lot more. My parents were driving me to and from practice, and waiting for me during practice. We realized this was something I was good at. We decided not to waste it."

At 14, Richmond began to excel, setting the state age-group record for 13- and 14-year-olds in the 100-meter butterfly. Then more records began to fall — locally and nationally.

According to a list of individual top times for all state prep swimmers this season that was compiled by Punahou swim coach Jeff Meister, as of Jan. 25, Richmond was No. 1 in four of the eight categories he swam. In the others, he was ranked No. 2 once and No. 3 three times.

So far, only two other homegrown swimmers — Randall Tom (Seabury Hall ’04, UC Irvine ’09) and Ilia Reyes (Kamehameha ’07, Hawaii ’11) — have joined Richmond as qualifiers for the U.S. Olympic trials.

Richmond knows that, as a prep swimmer, the odds are overwhelmingly tough that he will be one of the top two finishers in the 100 fly who will make the U.S. team. One spot will likely go to legendary Olympian Michael Phelps, one of Richmond’s role models.

Richmond said he would be pleased if he made the semifinals or finals.

"That," said Popdan, "would be a tremendous success for him."