# Grace Valette: Boulder’s Swimming Star Making Waves in New York
## A Legacy in the Water
In Boulder, Colorado, the Valette name carries a certain weight in the swimming community. When Josie Valette graduated from Boulder High School in 2016 as a three-time state championship qualifier, school record holder, and MVP, she left behind a record board at the North Boulder Recreation Center that her younger sister Grace would spend the next four years chasing.
Grace Valette was born into swimming, raised in one of the country’s most athletically active cities, and shaped by a family culture that put the pool at the center of life. Her father Alain’s build — particularly those swimmer’s shoulders that run in the family — and the constant presence of an accomplished older sister created an environment where excellence in the water was simply expected. And Grace, for her part, has not just met that expectation. She has exceeded it.
## Boulder Roots: A Family of Athletes
The Valette family is a Boulder institution. Grace’s parents, Alain and Debbie Valette, raised two daughters in the foothills of the Rockies — Josie, born in 1998, and Grace, who per the CollegeSwimming database graduated high school in the class of 2020. Growing up in Boulder meant access to world-class training facilities, a community that takes outdoor sport and physical fitness seriously, and the RallySport Aquatic Club, one of Colorado’s better-regarded competitive club programs where both sisters honed their craft.
Josie’s journey set the template. After four years of state meet appearances at Boulder High School, she went on to swim at the University of Denver, where she would become one of the Summit League’s elite butterfly and freestyle swimmers, earning Summit League Women’s Swimmer of the Year honors in 2019–20 and competing at the 2019 French National Championships. Watching that path unfold up close gave Grace a clear vision of what committed swimming could look like — and by the time she arrived as a freshman at Boulder High School, she had every intention of writing her own chapter in the family story.
## Boulder High School: Stepping Into the Spotlight
Grace Valette’s high school career at Boulder High — home of the Panthers — began with an immediate statement. As a freshman in the 2016–17 school year, she joined a program that had just said goodbye to its biggest star, and she made it clear in the very first tri-meet of the season that a new Valette era was underway.
In a January 2017 meet against Fairview and Monarch, Grace won two events: she won the 500-yard freestyle in 5:38.25 and took the 200-yard freestyle in 2:02.90, beating out Monarch’s Sidney Trimm in a dramatic final stretch. The BoCoPreps coverage of that meet noted that she was the “highlight of an impressive freshman class” and that she “would love nothing more than to add her name next to her sisters on that board” — the school record board at the North Boulder Rec Center. “It’s definitely a goal of mine,” she said at the time.
Her events were the longer freestyle distances — the 200 free, 500 free, and later the 1,650 free — events that reward the engine, the pacing intelligence, and the ability to negative-split a race under competitive pressure. Her CollegeSwimming profile shows a versatile range in high school that extended to the 200-yard backstroke, 100-yard backstroke, and 100-yard fly as well, with competitive times across the board.
By her senior season in 2019–20, Grace had compiled a high school career marked by consistent improvement, state meet appearances, and the kind of foundation that tells college coaches an athlete hasn’t yet scratched the ceiling of her potential. Colorado Swimming ranked her 24th in the state of Colorado for her graduation class, a mark that in a state with deep swimming talent represented genuine strength. The CollegeSwimming power index placed her as a sprint-distance specialist — though her event range told a broader story.
## Club Swimming: RallySport Aquatic Club
Throughout her high school years, Grace trained year-round with the RallySport Aquatic Club — the same program that had developed her sister Josie into a Junior National Qualifier. RallySport, based out of the RallySport Health and Fitness facility in Boulder, has a solid track record of developing Colorado’s competitive swimmers, and the environment of training alongside serious club athletes accelerated Grace’s growth in ways that the high school schedule alone could not have provided.
The club circuit gave her exposure to larger competition fields, longer yards at training intensity, and events beyond the standard high school slate — important groundwork for the collegiate level she was clearly targeting.
## The Modeling Career: A Different Kind of Lane
Grace Valette’s story has a dimension that sets her apart from most college swimmers: she is also a working professional model, represented by two of the industry’s recognized agencies.
She is signed with Wilhelmina Models, one of the world’s most established modeling agencies with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and beyond. She is also represented by Fogg Management, a Denver-based agency. Her measurements — 5’10” (178 cm) in height — make her a natural fit for editorial and runway work, and her profile on models.com lists show appearances including the Fashion Hong Kong SUN=SEN Fall/Winter 2020 show and the Kevan Hall Designs Spring/Summer 2022 show, among others. She was confirmed for the Fall/Winter 2020 New York Fashion Week go-sees.
On Instagram (@gracevalette), where she has built a following of over 3,000, she describes herself as a “mountain girl travelin’ the world,” with tags for both Fogg Management and Wilhelmina Models. Her profile reflects someone equally comfortable in the competitive athletic world and the fashion industry — a dual identity that speaks to both range and confidence.
The modeling career and the athletic career are not as disparate as they might seem. Both require discipline, body awareness, the ability to perform under pressure in front of an audience, and the mental resilience to handle both rejection and success without losing focus on the longer arc of development.
## Hunter College: Arriving in New York
After high school in Boulder, Grace Valette made the cross-country move to New York City to attend Hunter College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system. Hunter College, located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, is one of the largest colleges in the CUNY system with a diverse, academically serious student body — and its swimming and diving program has been on a sustained run of excellence, capturing consecutive CUNYAC (CUNY Athletic Conference) championships year after year.
Valette joined the Hawks as a freshman in the 2025–26 academic year. The transition from the Rocky Mountain altitude and wide-open spaces of Boulder to the density and energy of New York City was significant — but on the pool deck, the adjustment was seamless.
## Freshman Season (2025–26): A Record-Breaking Debut
Grace Valette’s freshman campaign at Hunter College has been one of the most impressive debut seasons in recent CUNYAC swimming history.
Her statement arrived early. At the ECAC Winter Championships in December 2025, she broke the CUNYAC conference record in the 100-yard freestyle, posting a time of 54.04 seconds and placing 21st overall in what was a broad, competitive field. She also narrowly missed the conference record in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:58.27, falling just 0.07 seconds short of the existing mark of 1:58.20. She also competed in the 100 backstroke (1:02.32) and the 200 backstroke (2:17.32) at the same meet.
The CUNYAC recognized the performance immediately. Valette was named CUNYAC Women’s Swimming Rookie of the Week for the week of December 9, 2025 — a formal acknowledgment of one of the most impactful single-meet debut performances the conference had seen from a first-year swimmer.
Her contributions to Hunter’s lineup throughout the regular season were consistent and multi-event. In the dual meet against Baruch on Senior Night in January 2026, Valette won three individual events — the 200-yard freestyle (2:05.68), the 100-yard freestyle (57.08), and the 500-yard freestyle (5:50.30) — as Hunter secured a 56–39 victory. Her versatility across the sprint and middle-distance freestyle events, combined with her strength in the backstroke, made her one of the Hawks’ most valuable multi-event contributors throughout the regular season.
The conference championship in late January/early February 2026 brought her most significant performance of the year. At the 2026 CUNYAC Women’s Swimming and Diving Championship held at Lehman College’s APEX Pool, Valette won three individual gold medals: the 500-yard freestyle, the 1,650-yard freestyle (in a time of 19:13.45), and the 100-yard backstroke. She also anchored a first-place finish in the 800-yard freestyle relay. Her individual contributions helped push Hunter to its sixth consecutive CUNYAC championship title — a run of dominance that is remarkable by any conference standard.
Following the championship, the CUNYAC formally recognized her exceptional freshman season by naming her the 2025–26 CUNYAC Women’s Swimming Rookie of the Year — the conference’s top honor for first-year swimmers. The citation noted that she set a conference record in the 100 freestyle (54.04) during the season and led the Hawks to their sixth straight title with her three championship victories.
## Career Best Times (as of 2025–26 season)
| Event | Time |
|——-|——|
| 50 Yard Freestyle | personal best on file |
| 100 Yard Freestyle | 54.04 (CUNYAC Conference Record) |
| 200 Yard Freestyle | 1:58.27 |
| 500 Yard Freestyle | competitive |
| 1,650 Yard Freestyle | 19:13.45 |
| 100 Yard Backstroke | 1:02.32 |
| 200 Yard Backstroke | 2:17.32 |
## The Full Picture
What makes Grace Valette’s story compelling is the combination of elements that define it: a family deeply rooted in the sport, a high school career that built steadily in one of Colorado’s strongest swimming communities, a parallel career in professional modeling that reflects the same kind of discipline and performance orientation, and a freshman collegiate season that has already produced conference records and a Rookie of the Year award.
She arrived at Hunter College from Boulder — from mountains and altitude and a swimming program shaped by her sister’s legacy — and immediately became one of the conference’s most impactful freshmen. The CUNYAC now has a Valette in its record books, the way Boulder High once added one to the board behind Lane 1 at the North Boulder Rec Center.
For a swimmer who grew up with those records in sight, watching her sister’s name in those lanes, and promising herself she would get there too, there is something satisfying in how fully that promise has been kept — and in the fact that, as a freshman, there is still so much road ahead.
## Social Media and Representation
**Instagram:** @gracevalette — NYC-based, travel-forward content documenting her life as both an athlete and model. Approximately 3,100+ followers.
**Modeling Representation:**
– Wilhelmina Models (New York, Los Angeles, Denver)
– Fogg Management (Denver)
– Also listed with D Management Group
Grace Valette’s email for professional inquiries, as listed publicly on her Instagram profile, is gr**********@****ud.com.
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*Grace Valette is a freshman swimmer at Hunter College in New York City, competing for the Hunter Hawks in the CUNYAC. She was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado, and is the younger sister of Josie Valette, a former University of Denver swimmer and Summit League Women’s Swimmer of the Year. Grace is represented as a professional model by Wilhelmina Models and Fogg Management.*
