BARRHEAD - It has been a busy year for the Barrhead Bluefins.
So far this season, the swim club has competed in five swim meets, including back-to-back swim meets hosted at the Edmonton Kinsmen Sports Centre, the latest of which was a two-day affair.
"It has been a good season so far, with the kids have made some great strides," Kylee Meunier said. "This season, we have had 233 top 10 finishes, qualifying for 13 eliminator swims but more importantly, 275 personal best times shaving 2,785.47 seconds [46.27 minutes] taken off their previous best times."
The "Eliminator" or "Swiminator" is a fun event that aims to find the fastest overall swimmer, regardless of stroke specialty, by pitting athletes in a series of 25-metre freestyle heats to see who the meet's quickest swimmer is.
Meunier, a former swim club member in her second season, said the club boasts 42 swimmers from ages seven to 17, up about half a dozen from last year, all in the competitive stream.
Swimmers practice four days a week, Monday to Thursday, for an hour to an hour and a half.
When the Barrhead Swim Club rebooted in 2017 after nearly a four-year hiatus between the closure and demolition of the old aquatics centre and the opening of the new swimming pool, it opted to come back under its old structure, a winter club with both competitive and non-competitive programs.
However, in recent years, the club has paired down to the competitive stream, with its members expected to compete at swim meets.
Meunier said the club has also decided, at least for the foreseeable future, not to pursue hosting its own swim meet, something the old club did regularly.
She added that in the last half-dozen years, the club had hosted a pair of "in-house fun meets" in preparation for what they had hoped would be the return of a sanctioned Swim Alberta meet.
"We just don't have enough volunteers to host a swim meet," she said, adding it takes a lot of people and volunteer hours to host a successful swim meet.
Meunier noted that this includes those with specific training but did not rule out the possibility sometime in the future.
She said the Bluefins were busy preparing for two events, including the club's annual Swim-A-thon, a joint Swim Alberta/club fundraising event in which swimmers attempt to complete 200 laps (roughly equal to five kilometres) of the pool in two hours on Feb. 4, and their next swim meet in early March.
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
