ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Competitive swimmers spend hours training in the pool, but the next challenge facing a group of St. Petersburg youth swimmers is out in the open water.
“They’re all counting on us, so our goal is to go out there and win and be our best,” swimmer Sawyer Hansen said.
Four swimmers from St. Pete are representing Team USA in the World Junior Open Water Swimming Championships in Argentina.
“I take it with pride, I never take it as a nervous energy. I use it as more excitement just knowing that this is something so many kids dream of and I get to live that,” swimmer Brinkleigh Hansen said.
What makes it even more special is three of the four of them are siblings. Karrington, Brinkleigh and Sawyer Hansen get to share this experience together.
“Oh yeah, this is the greatest thing to be able to compete and swim with my sisters, My family is always competitive always want to be the best you can be and being able to represent Team USA at the highest level is the best it gets,” Sawyer Hansen said.
“We’ve grown up doing swimming together and all kinds of sports, but particularly swimming, swimming together in the same group same hour, like we see how hard each other are working, so I think that motivates each other, and now we get to represent with each other and go have fun,” Brinkleigh Hansen said.
Karrington Hansen is away at college as she is a swimmer at the University of Kentucky, so while the three high schoolers train in St. Pete, she is training in Lexington.
The fourth member of the group is Ansley Bess, a freshman at St. Petersburg High School. She said when she heard the news that she would be swimming for Team USA, she couldn’t believe it.
“I kind of didn’t process it because I initially found out right after my race from my friend’s coach, and I just didn’t believe it because I’ve never performed on this stage before, so it was just really ‘Wow,’ to me, it was cool,” Bess said.
But Bess is in luck: her teammate, Brinkleigh Hansen, has performed on this stage before. She has already represented Team USA, so she’s helping her teammates ease the nerves and enjoy the experience.
“It’s honestly such an honor, and it’s something that you never get used to. I started representing Team USA back in 2024 when I was a freshman at St. Pete High School and I’ve done many international competitions since then. I’d say my biggest one was one last year in Singapore and the feeling never goes away, it’s so incredible and I’m just glad that I can do it with my siblings and one of my teammates this time,” Brinkleigh Hansen said.
The competition runs from Sept. 3-6 in Sante Fe, Argentina. Sawyer said they don’t have that many practice reps in open water, so they are embarking on a new challenge in a new country.
“Open water is way different than in-pool swimming, in-pool swimming is like swim on your own, it’s your own lane, but open water, there’s so many people around you — it’s aggressive fighting, kicking everything you can think of so you got to be mentally tough and fight through adversity,” Sawyer Hansen said.
They will put all that training to the test in Argentina against the best young swimmers in the world and will try to bring home gold.