Petersburg’s Viking Swim Club hosted its annual meet, November Rain, this past weekend. Petersburg swimmers aged 7 to 17 competed with kids from Ketchikan, Craig, Sitka, Juneau, and Wrangell, in more than 100 events. Scott Burt coaches the club and said the nearly 50 Vikings that competed swam incredibly well. He thinks that’s partly because of the culture of the club.
“There’s a lot of positivity that feeds off of positivity,” he said. “Success breeds success. You’ve got older kids that are doing great and setting the role model and you see these younger kids coming in and they want to be like those older kids. And that’s just a very positive but challenging environment.”
The team set three new club records at the meet and they earned 21 new qualifying times for a restricted championship meet in Fairbanks in February. They also earned seven new state qualifying times for the state championship in April, which is an even higher bar to cross.
November Rain is the club’s second meet of the season, which starts in September and continues through May. Burt said a lot of swimmers aged up into new events. Nearly a quarter of events were swum by kids who have never tried that event before. He said he found it remarkable to watch them have the courage to try something new.
“You know, they come to me and they’re like, ‘I’m so scared I don’t want to do this event,’” he said. “I’m like, ‘You can do it,’ and, and to see their faces light up, you know, when they finish it, and that belief in themselves – that was a really remarkable take home for me this weekend, too, to have that number of first time swims. They met the challenge.”
The next meet will be in mid-December in Ketchikan. So far about 30 Petersburg swimmers have qualified for the February meet in Fairbanks, and about 20 have already qualified for state in April.
