The Westport Weston Family Y Water Rat Swim Team won today’s 15-mile marathon swim across Long Island Sound to benefit Swim Across the Sound, the St. Vincent’s Medical Center cancer charity in Bridgeport. The team’s victory, in 5 hours 47 minutes, was its third in a row. More than 160 swimmers took part in the swim from Port Jefferson, L.I. to Captain’s Cove in Bridgeport. Pictured are (l-r): Frisk Driscoll, Coach Ellen Johnston, Anna Smith, Michael Dunn, Keenan Koss, Danny Platow, Christina Bladek, and Coach Bill Krumm. Contributed Photo
Sponsors
7 thoughts on “Westport Water Rat Swim Team Triumphs in Swim Across the Sound”
Leave a Reply
Subscribe
Enter your email address to get WestportNow.com delivered to your inbox:
Powered by FeedBlitz
Of Interest
Support a classroom.
Build a future.
What's inside
Property Transfers
Arts & Leisure
Business
Community
Health & Fitness
Education
Politics
Real Estate
Sports
COVID-19 Info
Westport Info
Westport Weather
Westport Traffic
Of Interest
Westport YouTube
Social Media
Westport-Area Blogs
Suggest a Westport-area blog by sending email to: editor@westportnow.com
And they did all this without a 50Meter Pool and a 37 Million Dollar Facility Jamming up traffic in Wilton. Keep the Y Downtown!!!!
Congrats Team !
For the record, this amazing group of kids were not able to practice at the downtown Y due to a lack of available pool time. Instead,they used a borrowed pool at 5:30am which meant that all of them, without a lot of driving experience, were hitting the road prior to sunrise. Furthermore, during the school year, the Y has to rent practice time for them at Staples which means that they, as well as their team mates are adding to the traffic on North Avenue.
Dear Anon and other anonymous experts.
The 3x winners of the Swim Across the Sound cancer fund raiser have to train at a private club and/or Staples High School for the above important cause… and for their main season. Why? because there is not enough room at the current Y. How do I know? I drive them.
To “Anon”. Drop me a line at my e-mail addess. Would love to know who you are.
Jud Koss
Congrats to the kids.
With Wilton saying they will build a new Y as well (can you believe it). Why not have Westport use Wilton’s current 50 Meter pool. Now that is regional cooperation, not selfishness, or worse egotism.
Let’s be real. How many 50 meter pools does one area really need. And Westport really doesn’t need one.
And btw – if 10 kids have to get up before dawn so they can practice, as opposed to building a 100,000 monstrosity in a residential area, so be it. When I was on a swim team years ago practice was at 6am at the neighboring school. Watch any up close and personal bio during the olympics and before dawn is the norm.
Okay, so we’ll have Westport residents use Wilton’s YMCA pool because they are building a new one? While we are at it then, why bother putting astroturf on several fields in town – lets just have the Staples football team play at a neighboring town’s field since most of the other towns play on astroturf? Lets have all the Westport soccer, field hockey and lacrosee teams, that can’t wait to play on astroturf, go to neighboring towns and just use their fields? No reason to put astroturf on our fields if we can just go to another town and use their fields. Crazy way of thinking. And it is not the hour that is inconvenient to the swimmers. They are used to early mornings. It gets them up and ready to face their day at school. But if they were to use the Y pool for practice (which i think most YMCA swim teams do, practice at THEIR pool) ,then there would be no open swim for members or early morning water excercise classes. We need a larger pool to accomodate all of those members that would like to use it. It is kind of silly to think the YMCA swim team borrows and rents pools for their swim team to practice. And that is not just in the summer – they pay rent for pool space all season. It is time for a new pool for all members of the Westport/Weston Family Y.
First of all, the problems Wilton has with its traffic does not (and will not) have anything to do with the Westport Y. Wilton’s problems have to do with poor zoning in Wilton and should be addressed by the Wilton authorities and not blamed on the Y.
These kids should be congratulated and praised for the hard work they put into this event. Using them as political pawns is disgusting.People seem to think that building a 50 meter pool is solely to benefit the swim team.That is inaccurate. A fifty meter pool, set in the short course configuration,will allow several groups to use two pools at once.There is no diving team, no water polo team, no synchronized swim team in Westport. Swim classes are maxed out out at each session and I’m sure there are other groups who would like more pool time.
It seems to me that the busier we keep our young people, the less we’ll need to worry about ordinances regarding underage drinkers. Do you think these kids, who practice every morning at 5:30 and then go off to summer jobs,are out partying at night?
I might add that I live less than a mile from the proposed site of the Y and I support it. I wish those who post anti Y messages on this board would have the guts to use their real names.What are they afraid of?
I am not anti Y, I am for keeping the Y in a central place. I have been a Y member on and off most of my life.
Someone spoke of bad zoning being the problem at the Wilton Y. And what do you think will be the reason there will be traffic in Westport. Bad zoning!!!.
There is no reason in the world to build a commercial facility, especially of that size and impact, in a residential neighborhood.
Need a new pool. Build it downtown, or share one. Don’t be so selfish and egotistic that Westport must have its own.