Swim club fast and furious in Fairbanks competition

Five Wrangell swimmers joined athletes from 22 other Alaskan teams to participate in the 2017 Alaska Age Group Championship meet in Fairbanks over the weekend.

The meet was the third that Wrangell Swimming Club has entered

competitively since starting up last year. Previously, the youth program

participated in events hosted by Petersburg in November and Juneau in December.

“It was a lot larger than any of the other two tournaments we’ve been to,” team coach Jamie Roberts said of Fairbanks’ meet. Held inside the city’s public Hamme Pool, 378 swimmers from around the state competed in a variety of events. Of Wrangell’s team, five had qualifying times and were able to attend the competition.

“All the swimmers did an amazing job competing for the first time at this level,” commented the team’s other coach, Bruce McQueen.

Ten-year-old Jack Roberts earned four first placements, one second, and one sixth out of seven events he competed in. For his times, he was placed in fourth overall among the 10 and under boys.

Swimmers age 11 and over compete in events by age and gender, with all but the longest events run as preliminaries in the morning, with finals later that evening.

“There were long days,” said Roberts, stretching from 7 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. most days.

Nikolai Siekawitch ended up as the only one on his team to advance to the finals in all of his events, earning one second-place finish and two fifths. Hope and Mercy Mikkelsen and Renee Roberts posted a number of personal best times, and “held their own commendably in what are arguably the toughest age brackets,” according to McQueen.

The meet was a learning experience for the fledgling team, which when it was started last year was the first Wrangell had fielded competitively in 14 years. Coach Roberts noted a number of other teams’ coaches and parents came up to tell her they were glad to see the town competing again.

In addition to the newness of the preliminary round, the young swimmers had to become accustomed to colder water in the pool, and had to learn how better to keep from cramping up in response.

Another novelty was the lack of open space in the pool. During practices, a minimum of 20 swimmers shared each of the six lanes, rather than the usual four Wrangell was accustomed to.

“I call that ‘combat warm-ups,’” quipped Roberts.

Lanes were also considerably shallower than at home, under five feet deep rather than 12. Competitions were compressed for time too, with each heat typically diving off over the heads of the preceding heats as soon as they finished.

“It was run really fast,” she said. Still, through long days and speedy competition, her team pulled through with positive results. “I think they handled that level of competition really well. Some of them also achieved times that would allow them to compete at the Alaska Junior Olympics.”

The team will next be headed to an open meet in Ketchikan scheduled for the end of March. While there, the swimmers will have another chance to qualify for April’s AJO.