For some, swimming is just a fun, summer activity to partake with friends and family on a hot day. For others, it is a great way to exercise while not having to worry about sweat stains or joint pain. For the very few, swimming is life.
With typically two practices a day and a five- to six-day active week, competitive swimming is not for the faint of heart. While most are enjoying the comfort of their covers at 4:30 a.m., many of Cherokee County’s swimmers are in the pool, getting their laps in. With about 20 hours per week in the water, some local athletes practically have grown gills, effectively living by the lifestyle of breathe, sleep, eat, swim.
There is an abundance of star swimmers floating around town, but few have risen above the rest. Astrid Medina, a 2023 Etowah High School graduate, has quite a few achievements under her swim cap. With eight years of swimming for a club team and four for her high school team, Medina certainly earned her title as the 2022 and 2023 season Most Valuable Player for Etowah. She was the captain for Etowah’s team. And she is the captain of the Chattahoochee Gold Swim Team, as well as its national team, where she qualified for junior nationals in February. Atop this, she won Etowah’s 2023 Athlete of the Year Award for Women in Sports Day. She has just taken off from the block and will continue her swimming career at California State University, Bakersfield.
Laurel Blasé, a 2023 Sequoyah High School graduate, is not just known for her fiery red hair but also for her fiery passion for swimming. Blasé spent the last four years swimming for her high school, in addition to 13 years with Chattahoochee Gold Swim Club. As a five-time state champion, she has made school history and will be inducted into the Cherokee County Sports Hall of Fame in May 2024. She has competed in an abundance of national level meets, one of which was in California in 2022, and landed herself a high placement nearly every time. Along with Medina, Blasé won an Athlete of the Year Award for Women in Sports Day 2023. Not only is she a great athlete, but she is a great sport, which led her to become a 2023 Georgia Positive Athlete of the Year nominee. She will jump into the pool again this fall at the University of Alabama, where she will further her swimming career.
Girls are not the only ones dominating the waters. Hudson Evans is only a rising junior at Cherokee High School, but he has risen to be a swim leader in Cherokee County. Evans has been swimming for six years and started competitive swimming with Chattahoochee Gold Swim Club at age 10. With his talent, he made his way to the highest group of the Chattahoochee Swim Club Team at a very early age and later moved to Dynamo Swim Club. Prior to changing teams, he achieved his first cut qualification for the Futures Championship at age 15. He also is a 2022-23 season Cherokee County swimming champion. He still has a few years ahead of him before college, so Evans will continue making strides in the sport he loves.
Cherokee County might not come to mind when people think of swimming nationally, but these local athletes could one day be household names throughout America.
The Swimmers’ Perspectives
“My favorite thing about swimming is the connections you make with people. I have met my best friends through swimming and have friends throughout the whole country because of this sport.” — Astrid Medina
“I like the accomplishing feeling I get after a hard workout.” — Hudson Evans
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“My favorite thing about swimming is definitely the relationships I have built through the sport. My best friends are my teammates, and my club coach at Chattahoochee Gold, Mark Schilling, has had such a lasting impact on my life. ” — Laurel Blasé