The Trail Winter Swim Club is prepping for another big meet this weekend with a new head coach at the helm, at least for the summer.
Andrea Wyers is an Ontario native and grew up swimming for a winter club before moving to Trail at age 15. She is currently a McGill University student working at Teck for the summer and fell into the position while training with the TWSC to fill the coaching vacancy left by former coach Cody Flegel.
“It’s a little intimidating,” said Wyers. “Obviously Cody was a really talented swimmer and did great things with them. I don’t want to mess anything up, but I do have a pretty good background in swimming so I’ll do whatever I can to make sure they (the swimmers) reach their full potential.”
Wyers swam with the Trail Stingrays Swim Club and the high school team before heading to university in Montreal. The 20-year-old sustainability and economics student also helped coach the Stingrays in 2009, and is a lifeguard while studying at McGill.
“I’ve always been a swimmer,” said Wyers who is already impressed with the competitors in the Greater Trail Swim Club.
“They are great. They’re so motivated. I coached and swam with most of them with the Stingrays and I mean they are all four or five years older now, but they are all a really motivated and talented group of swimmers.”
Following a terrific showing at the Kamloops meet last month, the team will look for similar results at the Summer Solstice swim meet in Spokane this weekend.
“We had some really great swims, a lot of best times, a lot of kids who consistently were getting best times, which is always great to see. They are at that age where they are growing, even between prelim and finals, they have a nap and grow two centimetres,” said Wyers.
The TWSC consists of the the competitive Greater Trail Swim Club, the triathlete program and the Mastery of Swimming program for adult swimmers looking to hone their skills, and get an introduction to competitive swimming.