COMMUNITY & CLUB
PIPING
HOT
In 2022, Piper Enge, a 15-year-old swimmer for the Bellevue Club, was supposed to attend the Winter Junior Nationals swim meet in Russia. But, like many other athletic events in the past few years, it was cancelled. The meet was especially important for Enge because it’s one of only a handful in which swimmers can qualify for the U.S. National Team. Plus, it’d give her invaluable experience at larger meets.
“I was pretty bummed,” Enge says, but she kept training nonetheless. And her perseverance recently paid off when she qualified for the replacement meet—the 2022 Junior Pan Pacific Championships this August in Hawaii. The elite event allows for only 20 men and 20 women from various countries to compete and qualify for world championships. Enge will be competing in the 100-meter breaststroke, an event in which she is currently ranked fifth fastest in the country. She sat down with Reflections to talk about how she trained her way through COVID and what it feels like to swim against her heroes on the world stage.
bellevue club july/aug 2022 | 45