The season for Petersburg’s youth swimming team, the Viking Swim Club, is nearing its end. Head Coach Derek Gibb told KFSK’s Taylor Heckart there have been a lot of exciting moments in the last year, including bringing an Olympic athlete to Petersburg to meet the swimmers.
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TRANSCRIPT:
This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Derek Gibb: We brought up Margaret Hoelzer. She’s a two-time Olympian. She won a couple silver medals and a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics.
Margaret was a teammate of mine at Auburn [University], and about six years ago I ran into her in the airport in Seattle, and I was like, “Margaret? What’s going on?” I hadn’t seen her for years. She goes, “I live in Seattle now, and I do lessons and stuff.”
Lo and behold, I became the coach this year, and so we were able to bring her up there the week before we went to Southeast Champs.
The goal I had was just to inspire some kids. She did a very good clinic. The kids loved it. It was actually really cool to see them so engaged with Margaret and what she had to say and I think she really inspired a lot of them.
Taylor Heckart: I mean, how cool is it, one to say you’ve met an Olympian, but also to be 12 years old and say you’ve met an Olympian. That’s awesome.
Derek Gibb: And that’s what I remember back when I was a kid. We had one [Olympian] come up, it’s stuck in my memory ever since. I was like, in awe.
And then Margaret came up here, and she said the same thing happened to her back when she was a kid. She had an Olympian [visit], and she thought that was the coolest thing in the world.
And so a lot of kids got to have pictures with her and got autographs. That was really cool for them.
Taylor Heckart: That’s a really cool legacy that you’ve gotten to continue for these kids.
Derek Gibb: Yeah, I think so. I think they really enjoyed it.
Taylor Heckart: Looking back at this season, were there any other big highlights for the Viking Swim Club?
Derek Gibb: You know, a lot of people will go just off of times. That’s awesome, it’s great to get medals and all that stuff. But I think what was cool for me to see is just the progress of the kids and from when they started to where they ended.
You know, I used to have a lot of records on this board, and so do a lot of others, but I kind of got knocked off the board, so to speak. This year we had a kid, Cyrus Hulebak, who only started swimming when he was 10. But he went from not having any records on the board – he was really close when he was 12 – and last year he wasn’t able to get any.
So this year that’s all he wanted to do. It’s all he talked about. And to see him talk about it, and then go and do it was probably the best part. There’s so many [broken records] that it’s hard to keep track, and he keeps breaking them. I mean, he was just swimming out of his mind.
Taylor Heckart: Yeah, and walk me through your state competition. How did that go?
Derek Gibb: It went very well. It’s the best meet in the state, you know, all the way from nine and 10 all the way up to the 19 year olds. And we got seventh place overall, which was pretty good.
We had a lot of swimmers make the meet and then not think they were going to do well, and actually ended up doing very well. We had several people final in events that didn’t think they were going to final, and then they finaled. And so that’s the best part for me, and I think that’s what I enjoyed the most.
Viking Swim Club Records Broken
Cyrus Hulebak: 50 free, 50 back, 100 back, 200 back, 50 breaststroke, 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke, 100 IM, 200 IM.
Tori Miller: 50 back, 50 breast, 50 fly, 100 IM.
Trygve Marohl: 1000 freestyle.
State Records Broken
Cyrus Hulebak: 50 breast, 50 fly.
Cyrus Hulebak, Tori Miller, Kendyl Lachapelle, Hakon Eddy: Mixed 200 free relay
