Team Featured on the Local News
Six RMSC swimmers travelled to Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota, Florida from April 4-6 to compete in the USA Swimming Open Water National and Junior National Championships. Swimmers qualified for this meet with their 1000 and 1650 yard pool times, but competed in 5K, 7.5K, or 10K open water races based on their Age Groups. There was some very tough competition, which featured not only the top American Open Water swimmers, but also swimmers from Canada, Australia, and Japan. In addition to that, there were some high winds and currents this year that the swimmers didn’t have to contend with last year. Despite all of this, our swimmers swam well over the long distances.
Before the competition, Cooper Zakorchemny was one of 12 18&U swimmers in the Country invited to the USA Swimming Open Water Performance Camp, where he trained and learned Open Water tactics. At the meet, Cooper became our first swimmer to tackle the Senior Nationals 10K. He finished in 38th place in 2:03:32, despite being one of the youngest competitors in the race. Two days later, Cooper was our top finisher in the Senior Nationals 5K, taking 30th in 1:01:30. Close behind were Charlie Begin, finishing 33rd in 1:01:36 in his first Open Water competition, and Alex Nguyen, finishing 39th in 1:02:37. In the Women's Senior Nationals 5K, Andrea Dworak, also competing in her first Open Water meet, had an excellent finish taking 15th place in 1:05:39.
In the Junior Nationals part of the competition, Trevor Donley provided the team its highest finish, taking 9th in the 16-17 7.5K in 1:34:55. Mara Ahearn was one of the youngest at the entire meet, competing in the 15&U 5K at age 13. She finished 31st in 1:10:36, in her first time ever competing that distance.
All of our swimmers exhibited tremendous toughness and stamina to compete at such long distances at such a high level, and once again, the team had a great experience on the trip. The team was so impressive that the local ABC News affiliate in Sarasota interviewed our swimmers, and featured it on TV that evening (here is the link):
US Open water championships held in Sarasota
Congratulations to our Open Water National Team!