Forty swimmers from the Prince George Barracudas Swim Club are heading to Prince Rupert today to compete in the Regional Kick Off Swim Meet.
Joining them are swimmers from Williams Lake, Smithers, Kitimat, Terrace and Prince Rupert to compete at the meet from Friday to Sunday.
"This is the preparation for the season," said Barracudas head coach Jerzy Partyka. "It's a very important meet for the younger swimmers."
Partyka said the meet will give younger members of the team a taste of competitive swimming. It's also an important venue to brush up on technique and work on endurance for longer distances.
For the more experienced swimmers the meet will be a warm up for the competitive season ahead, Partyka said.
"In December and February there are some major meets," he said.
The Barracudas are looking to send swimmers to the Kamloops Ice Classic in December. In February Chilliwack is hosting the B.C. AA Championship and Winnipeg is hosting the Western Canadian Championship.
"Swimming is a little different than team sports. We have 126 swimmers in the club and each one has different goals," he said. "We have lots of different swimmers from provincial level to national and international level."
Seniors ready for season
The Citizen caught up with two of the club's senior national-level swimmers during time trials on the weekend.
Last year Haley Black, 15, topped the national rankings for her age group in the 200m butterfly.
In Saturday's time trials Black was working on her endurance in the 1500m - posting a time of 19:17.
"It was better than I thought it would've been. I'm more of a short course fly swimmer. I was about 11 or 12 when I started getting really good at fly and I decided it was my best stroke," Black said. "I plan on working on my times and making them a lot faster and making some more Team Canada events."
Black said she's planning to put a lot of work in to improve her technique this season.
She'll be training beside teammate Danica Ludlow, 15, who lead the country last year in her age group on the 400m freestyle.
"Hopefully this year I'll be traveling a little more. I just missed the qualification for junior worlds last year, which was in Peru. In the next year, I'm just going to train hard and try to make it and, hopefully, that will take me around the world," Ludlow said. "This year I'm going to try and make Junior Pan Pacs - it's another junior national team. It's a very hard qualifying meet with a lot of fast competition so I'm going to try my hardest. I'll probably be one of the youngest people going if I do make it."
Black and Ludlow said swimming is a solo sport, but having teammates is important.
"We get along really well and we'll always be there for each other, which is what you need in a teammate," Ludlow said of Black. "I love the fact there's two of us. We'll never be alone and we'll always have someone to talk to if we don't know the rest of the team, which is really helpful."
- With files from Sheri Lamb
