Swimming and Diving Starts Season With Crimson-White Intrasquad
10/14/2004 12:00:00 AM | Swimming & Diving
After a summer filled with national and international competition, which included two Olympic medals, the Alabama Swimming and Diving teams are ready to get down to the business of the 2004-05 season, getting it underway Friday (Oct. 15) with an Intrasquad meet in the Don Gambril Olympic Pool. After training steadily since the start of school, this will be second-year head coach Eric McIlquham's first indicator of where the Tide is this season.
"We've been training pretty hard this fall and we're ready to take a look at where we are at this point," McIlquham said. "We had some great performances over the summer and already this fall, so as a staff, we're looking forward to this season. I think it's going to be a very exciting time for us as a program."
The Crimson and White squads were picked by their captains and will line up for a full compliment of races Friday night.
"We let them pick their own teams," McIlquham said. "So on Friday, we'll line up and race. We'll see how well they did in balancing the teams out."
The Crimson Tide swimming and diving program sent nine past and present athletes to the Athens Olympics; a figure that accounts for nearly 10 percent of the Southeastern Conference's overall total. The Tide had two medalist and three swimmers that swam in four finals. Susan (Bartholomew) Williams, class of '92, grabbed a bronze medal in the triathlon while senior Anne Poleska earned Alabama's first individual swimming medal since 1984, when she earned bronze in the 200-meter breaststroke.
Poleska is back for her final season, after redshirting last year to train for the Games, ready to put an exclamation point on her already sterling career. She has finished in the top-3 in the 200 breaststroke at her first three NCAA Championships, and now she's looking for the top spot.
Also making a return to the lineup this year will be redshirt-sophomores Victoria Genova, the school record holder in the 200 butterfly, and freestyle standout Eleonora Markou. Both women will bolster the Tide's scoring potential. Last year's rookie sensation Arlene Semeco also saw action in Athens, swimming in the sprint events. Already one of the fastest sprinters in Tide history, she should only improve in 2005. All-Americans Kathryn Hallquist, Alison Lafevers and Crystal Rasmussen, all from the junior class, will all make a splash again this year.
Alabama's men have four swimmers back from a summer in Greece ready to make a renewed impact on the Tide's fortune. Like Poleska, sophomores Vlad Polyakov and Apostolis Tsgarakis and junior Spiros Bitsakis all redshirted last season to train for the Games. They will bolster the Tide's lineup considerably. Sophomore Igor Erhartic trained in Tuscaloosa last season and really came on over the second half of the season.
Polyakov was second in the 200 breaststroke at the NCAA Championships as a freshman. At the Olympics, he finaled in both the 100 and 200m breaststrokes, one of only three athletes to do that in Athens. The other two were World Record holder Brendan Hansen and double gold medalist Kosuke Kitajima. At the FINA World Championships, held this October in Indianapolis, Polyakov brought home a pair of bronze medals, taking third in the 100 and 200m breaststrokes.
Bitsakis, Tsgarakis and Erhartic competed in the sprint events and relays at the Olympics and should bring that experience to bear for the Tide. The four Olympians will remake the Tide's relay lineups and dramatically increase its scoring potential come championship season.
Joining the Tide's Olympic trio will be All-American diver Aaron Ashworth, All-American sprinter Darren Erasmus, the butterfly/freestyle tandem of JT Jones and Chris Flamion - all from the junior class. The Tide will also look to All-American diver Stewart Smith and 200 backstroke school record holder Franck Southon, both seniors. Alabama should also get a boost from its 10-member rookie class.
And while the Tide races for the first time Friday night, it's first outside competition comes Friday, Oct. 29 against LSU and Arkansas in Baton Rouge. The Tide faces Auburn on Friday, Nov. 19 in its first home dual meet of the season. The SEC Championships are in Gainesville starting February 11. The women's NCAA Championships are Lafayette, Ind. March 17-19, while the men's are in Minneapolis March 24-26.
