Twins Swimming Toward Championships

By Bruce Whitney - February 23, 2008
Community Submission

Emma, left, and Julia Whitney

PITTSFIELD - Twins Emma and Julia Whitney of Williamstown are preparing for two New England Championship events in two different leagues - YMCA and the tougher U.S. Swimming, in which they are two of a scant few Berkshire County team swimmers qualified.

In each league, the twins occupy top 10 rankings throughout New England among 9- to 10-year-olds in nearly every event and distance. They are now training for these championships to be held in Attleboro and Cambridge, the latter at Harvard University.

Their near-parallel athletic development has provided some additional support for the twins - while other swimmers have only their coach at each race, these girls also have each other at the blocks.

And while they want more than anything to beat each other when the horn sounds, they provide support in between races like no two other swimmers can.

The Whitney girls' coach alone would be enough for most swimmers to succeed.

Kriste Kleiner, coach of the Pittsfield YMCA Polar Bears swim team, captured a National Collegiate Championship title in 100-meter backstroke on her 21st birthday. She shattered many team and pool records in many events at Regis College and was elected into its Athletic Hall Of Fame. Since then, she has continued to coach swimming to children on a part-time basis. Decades later, her name remains on many, many youth swimming records at pools in the Berkshires.

Her father, Don Kleiner, continues to provide support and inspiration to the team as well as these two young swimmers just as he had to his daughter and hundreds of youngsters over decades in his own coaching career. He calls Emma "little tiger" in homage to a nickname he gave his daughter more than 20 years ago, long before it became popularized in golf. Coach, as the swimmers call him, seems to connect with Julia on a different, even more emotionally competitive level.

At the USS Championships, Emma and Julia will swim in nine and eight events,
respectively. In the YMCA Championships, they are only allowed to select three individual events among the many of which they have achieved qualifying times throughout the competitive swimming season. They may elect to also swim in relay team events.

The two are "seeded" quite highly, which is a process to rank or place fastest swimmers together in individual races or "heats." Among all USS swimmers in New England, Emma is seeded No. 1 in both 100-yard and 200-yard freestyle and third in both 50-yard freestyle and 50-yard butterfly.

Julia is positioned No. 2 in 50-yard breaststroke. Other events find them positioned in the top 10.

Don't be fooled by their "twinship" - their skills differ. While Julia is accomplished is the Individual Medley, which involves all four strokes, she is a natural breaststroker "which almost always ensures success in the IM" according to her coach. In 2006, Julia was honored by USS Swimming as the sixth-fastest breaststroker in New England. Julia has quickly developed stronger skills in breaststroke to accompany her natural speed in freestyle.

This season, Emma has proven almost unbeatable in individual events of freestyle, backstroke and butterfly and has broken pool records and meet records along the way. While her yet-to-be-mastered skills in breaststroke hold her back only slightly in IM, she is learning the challenging new stroke quickly and has qualified in both 100- and 200-yard IM events for these championships.

In their most recent two meets of 150 swimmers or more, the pair has taken first place in all but two races and have each walked away with top point trophies at each meet for the compilation of their finishing positions in their races.

Swimming has caused them to organize themselves somewhat differently than their schoolmates. Many nights in the pool causes them to work hard to finish homework and make specific time for hobbies and friends. Reinforcement from other successful collegiate and Olympic athletes has reinforced the need for development of life organization skills.

They have trained with medal winners including Ed Moses and Neil Walker and were most impressed by a talk on balancing schoolwork, responsibilities and fun from Adams native Libby Ariazi following the breaking of her longtime butterfly record at the Northern Berkshire YMCA pool.

Their success, in part, results from a simple focus to beat their own personal best time instead of just the other swimmers in the pool. And when they beat their own time, they usually beat everyone in the pool.

The girls also excel at other sports including baseball and they love to ski. Emma is looking forward to learning to snowboard this season. "But not until after championships," Kriste Kleiner reminded them.

Editor's Note: Bruce Whitney is Julia and Emma's father. Submissions such as this are decided on a case-by-case basis. Whitney also plans to write about some of the area's other swimmers.