Wyoming crowns state champs in Rapid City?

By Jeff Budlong, Journal staff | Monday, July 28, 2008

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RAPID CITY — The state of Wyoming crowned its state swimming champions this weekend. Little seems odd about that except the fact that the USS Summer Long-Course A and B Championship Meet was held in Rapid City.

With the pool at the Aquatic Center in Gillette shut down for a facelift that is expected to last the duration of the summer, Wyoming swimming officials decided to move the state meet to Rapid City. So Horace Mann outdoor pool was selected to play host for the Wyoming state meet.

“We have several high level swimmers and we needed a 50-meter pool to use if we wanted those times to convert over,” said Ann Ochsner, who helped get the meet moved. “We swam at Horace Mann before and we joke that it must have been built downhill because it is a really fast pool.

“We called and asked if we could use the pool, and we have gotten a lot of help to make it happen.”

The Gillette Gators were aiming for their seventh straight summer long-course state team title and 14th consecutive including the winter championship, but without their regular pool to train in it made things a little more challenging. For a team that usually qualifies nearly 50 swimmers for state, the difficulties this year meant that only 34 made the trip to Rapid City.

“We have had to use a portable pool we call the ‘pool in the box’ to train, and with some of the cold weather we had early in the season it made it tough,” Ochsner said. “The kids would practice early in the morning putting on their wetsuits and diving into the cold water.”

The portable pool is a six-lane, 25-yard long pool which ranges in depth from 3 ½ to 4 feet deep. While the pool was adequate for practice it would not be able to handle a state meet.

The three-day state meet concluded Sunday.