The little club that could is looking for new recruits.
Last week head coach John Campbell was cheering his swimmers on to one of his teams’ best-ever showings at the at the Vancouver Island Regional Short Course Championships.
On Wed., Feb. 2 he’ll be back on deck at Ravensong Aquatic Centre, putting his swimmers through their paces and answering questions as part of the RAC Breakers Open House.
An opportunity to for anyone interested in learning more about the local speed swimming club and what it has to offer, the open house will run from 4:30 to 6 p.m., and new swimmers are invited to give it a try.
“It’s a great sport,” said Campbell, “and we want to invite anyone interested to come out on Wednesday and try it.”
The Breakers it should be noted were ranked in the top 30 amongst this country’s pool of 375 clubs last year, and have five swimmers currently ranked top ten in Canada — two of those, 14-year-olds Laura Romkes and Maran Kokoszka — are in the top five in Butterfly, Freestyle and Backstroke.
The local squad is coming off a super showing at the VIRs at Saanich Commonwealth Pool Jan. 22-23 where Romkes led the way with a four 1st place finishes — a club record for that meet.
Laura won the 1500 Free on opening day, and on day two, she started off winning the 400 Free. She was back on the blocks less than a half hour later to win the 200 Fly, and capped it off a short time later with a first place finish in the 100 Free.
Other highlights said Campbell included Kokoszka winning the 100 Back on day two, and the Breakers’ 11-12 Girls Medley Relay team of Haley Bennett (Backstroke), Elysia Biro (Breaststroke), Megan Romkes (Butterfly) and Joanna Redenbach (Freestyle) finishing second.
Angus McGibbon, 15, posted his first AAA qualifying time in the 400 IM. Simon Gilmour, 11, also touched that wall for his first AAA qualifying time in the 100 Fly.
“Great meet,” said Campbell. “Everybody was posting best short course times, and it’s a great springboard into the Western Canadian Championships in Kamloops (Feb. 17-20).”
Campbell will be taking three swimmers to that meet — Romkes, Kokoszka, and Richelle Bruyckere, 13.
It’s back to the business of training and recruiting for Campbell and company.
“Rebuilding the team … we lost four swimmers to graduation and we also lost a lot of swimmers when our pool shut down and we had to train in Nanaimo for six months,” explained John, who in his 11th season at the helm of the local club.
“We want folks to come down and seen how hard our kids train, and we also want to encourage new young swimmers who might be interested in the sport to come down and try it out.”
