Everything is going as planned in the pool as the Columbia-Shuswap Selkirks prepare for the season of meets to come
Selkirks head coach Barry Healey says the club continues to grow, with 48 swimmers in age group and another 56 in the masters club.
He says 16 new swimmers have joined the club, moving from out of town or coming from lessons.
“The quality of the children who have come in is very high.”
Lane space issues the club was experiencing during the summer have not continued as the weather gets colder.
“During the winter we’re always OK,” Healey said.
The first meet for the top end of the Selkirks program was held in Penticton last weekend.
The club’s younger swimmers will start their season with a meet Nov. 11 and 12 in Vernon. Healey says they will try to keep the young swimmers racing every six weeks.
A series of impressive finishes at provincials last year has flooded the masters swim club with newfound confidence.
“I’ve had probably 10 or 12 of them saying they want to go to nationals,” Healey said.
He said he is impressed by the turnaround in attitude and growing competitive spirit among the masters swimmers.
“It’s quite vibrant in B.C. in all age groups right up to 80 and above; there’s still a lot of people doing it,” he said.
After hosting their first-ever regional A championships meet earlier this year, the Selkirks have been awarded two more meets for 2018. One will be held in February and another in May.
The elite-level swimmers the Selkirks have produced continue to find success as Ethan Skofteby and James Lebuke have both been named to Team BC ahead of their first training camps.
Para-swimmer Maggie Manning is training with the Para Next-Gen program, which prepares athletes for the Canadian Paralympic team.
Healey says if he is able to keep the group of Skofteby, Lebuke, Manning and elite open-water swimmer Molly Fogarty training together, he thinks they will be finalists for Olympic trials in 2020.