Andrew Karpenko Represents Minnehaha Academy Swim
Andrew Karpenko will represent Minnehaha Academy in sections and state this upcoming swim season. He’s preparing to compete in the one hundred breast, two hundred individual medley, one hundred butterfly, and the fifty free stroke. Karpenko has the state qualifying breast stroke time by a full second, and he has the individual medley time by five seconds. In the butterfly and free stroke he needs to cut less than a second to qualify for state in those races.
Karpenko began swimming when he was four years old at
Foss swim school. At Foss, Karpenko fell in love with swimming. Wanting to swim competitively, Karpenko at the age of nine joined the “Fast Jets”. The “Fast Jets” are a competitive swim team located in Blaine that practices three times a week for two hours a day. Andrew quickly developed into an excellent swimmer and at the age of twelve he swept all of state for his age group.
“The biggest accomplishment I have had in sports so far was, sweeping state and setting a state record when I was twelve,” Karpenko said.
Karpenko prides himself on being a competitor.
“There’s really no other feeling like competing for me. The amount of adrenaline I get from competing is like nothing else, and at meets I feel like I’m alive. It’s a great honor to represent my club, high school team, and my state,” said Karpenko.
The freshman, Karpenko will represent Minnehaha Academy in sections and state this upcoming swim season. He will compete as a solo one man swim team for state and sections and will also swim with the Breck and Blake co-op swim team during their regular season meets.
Karpenko said, “I’m looking forward to the upcoming high school season and representing my school.”
Karpenko chose to leave club swimming to begin high school swimming.
He said, “I chose to do high school swimming over club swimming for multiple reasons. First being that it’s always helpful to have someone else’s advice on your technique. Second, it’s a great opportunity to meet new people. Third, it’s an interesting and new experience for me, and competing for a school means way more to me than competing for a club.”
Karpenko recently competed in the Fall University of Minnesota Swim Team Invite, hosted by the University of Minnesota Swim team. Karpenko said, “It was a really good experience and good competition that I got to compete against”.
Karpenko competes constantly and trains six times a week for two and a half hours with the Breck and Blake co-op. For this upcoming high school season, Karpenko will train with the Breck and Blake co-op during the regular season and compete in their regular season meets.
Karpenko hemes high hopes for the future.
“My goal for swimming is to swim for a division one program in college,” said Karpenko, but his hopes for the future expand beyond college. Karpenko said, “It would be an honor to swim for the U.S. at the Olympics.” Karpenko is looking forward for what’s to come.