Hannah Esopenko was a medal magnet at the Swim B.C. short course provincial championships.
Anything that was gold or silver in colour stuck right to her.
At provincials, held last weekend in Victoria, the 12-year-old Esopenko stroked to five first-place finishes and one second-place result. Her golds came in the 200-metre individual medley, 400m IM, 100m breaststroke, 200m breaststroke and 100m butterfly and she took silver in the 200m butterfly. In every event, she established new personal-best times.
"I think it went so well because I train hard in practice," said Esopenko, a sixth-year member of the Prince George Barracudas swim club. "It's really hard because you swim [preliminary] races and then you have to go back to finals to swim again. So I surprised myself in some of those events. It's just all about focus and hard work."
Esopenko was most pleased with her performance in the 200m IM, a race in which she stopped the clock in a club-record time of two minutes 29.45 seconds. Along with a gold medal, that time -- a PB by about six seconds -- earned her a spot in the age group national championships.
"I was just trying to be really focused and positive in that race," she said. "I wanted to make sure that every 50 [metres] I was going as fast as I possibly could."
Esopenko also established new club standards in the 100m breaststroke and 200m breaststroke.
Jerzy Partyka, head coach of the Barracudas, said Esopenko is fully deserving of her success.
"She is improving constantly," he said. "She's a very hard worker. She is swimming technically very well and is responding very good to training. She's a talented kid and she puts in the effort."
The Barracudas had just 19 athletes at provincials and finished an impressive fourth overall in the team standings.
Other swimmers who set new club records at the meet were: Haley Black, 200m IM and 400m IM; Danica Ludlow, 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle and 800m freestyle; Sterling King, 50m freestyle and 100m freestyle; and Mackenzie Lewington, 200m backstroke, 200m breaststroke and 400m IM.
In the team events, Black, Ludlow, Patricia Fortier and Jessa Wing combined to set a new Barracudas mark in the girls 15- to 17-year-old 200m freestyle relay. On the boys side, King, Josiah Binnema, Aiden Kim and Saveli Yungman became the quickest-ever Barracudas foursome in the 200m medley relay for 15- to 17-year-olds.
