Lourdes grad Wegescheide competes in Olympic swim trials Monday
Blair Wegescheide said she couldn’t think of a better way to wrap up her collegiate career.
Wegescheide, 21, will compete in Monday’s U.S. Olympic Trials in Omaha in the women’s 100-meter backstroke. The 2012 Our Lady of Lourdes graduate and Wappingers Falls resident is seeded 131st in a 189-swimmer field. The top two swimmers in the event qualify for the upcoming Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“It’s been awesome,” Wegescheide said by phone from Omaha on Sunday. “It’s definitely been great to see the fastest swimmers in the world and just getting settled into the pool. Finishing up my swimming career at the University of Pittsburgh and having that be my final race, I couldn’t have thought of a better place (to finish) than to do it in Omaha at the Olympic Trials.”
Wegescheide was joined by family Sunday. Mom Clare and dad Richard arrived in Omaha Sunday. Her brother Paul was scheduled to arrive later Sunday.
“We’re ecstatic. We’re like on a cloud,” Clare Wegescheide said. “I’m clearly extremely proud of her.”
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Blair Wegescheide graduated from the University of Pittsburgh last month with a degree in architecture and urban studies and begins graduate studies in the fall. Her mother said the balance of athletics and academics makes her proud.
“All the practices we took her to, all the swim meets all over the place, the mornings, all-day events…and she still loves the sport,” Clare Wegescheide said. “That is what is rewarding for me as a mother. All the craziness and she still got her homework done. She loved it to the point that she was still keeping her grades up.”
“I’d like to go as fast as I can and get a fast time (Monday),” Blair Wegescheide said. “I’d like to make connections with different coaches and different swimmers there and be able to reach out to other people there and form a network — to improve Pitt’s future and get our area of New York out there, and even representing Larry Collins from the Patriot swimming team.”
Collins, the swim coach at Beacon High School, runs Big Blue/Patriot swimming club in Beacon and coached Wegescheide for five years.
“The funny thing about it is I had a chance to watch her grow from her scholastic through her college career,” Collins said, noting that Wegescheide out-performed some of her Pitt teammates when she was a freshman swimming in exhibition events. “She has really truly made a commitment to be both a great athlete and great student in her time at Pitt. She has really worked her way to being a national-level swimmer. She’s so quiet. And she’s the same beautiful young lady I’ve always known.”
At Lourdes, Wegescheide placed 10th in the state in the 100-yard backstroke as a senior and made the state meet all four of her years at Lourdes. She also played basketball for two seasons at Lourdes. At Pitt, she holds school records in the 50-yard backstroke, 100 backstroke and 200 backstroke and was also a member of the school-record 200 medley relay and 400 medley relay
Phil Strum: pstrum@poughkeepsiejournal.com, 845-437-4847, Twitter: @PJStrum