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Show - ' ' 1 As - I i When the swimming season began, the Vikes didn't realize what an outstanding swimmer they had in foreign exchage student, Pia Ahlm from Sweden. Pia Ahlm from Vastcras ion ;ani iJini A Swimmer Not To Be Forgotten! jg a By DAVE WIGHAM Clipper Sports VIEWMONT -- Pia Ahlm may only be enrolled en-rolled at the school for one year but she'll be remembered for years to come by the View-mont View-mont swim team and their coach. A COUPLE OF weeks ago. the Viking women were involved in the state swimming meet and Pia was a double winner taking top honors in both the 100 yard and the 200 yard freestyle events. For her efforts the coaches at the state meet voted her the Outstanding Female Swimmer in the state and awarded her a gold plate. When she arrived at the school this past year no one really knew what the Vikes had on their hands. Pia is a foreign exchange student at Viewmont coming to the Vikes all the way from Vasteras, Sweden which is just outside Stockholm. PIA HAS been a swimmer all of her life but the coach at Viewmont didn't realize this until the first time she hit the water for him over here. Her state winning time in the 100 and 200 yard races are both school records. She also holds the senior records in the 200 individual medley, the 50 yard freestyle and the 500 yard freestyle. All this success was predicted by her coach Casey Jackson, who all season has been noting he had a girl swimming that was 'hot', but it's a surprise to Pia. "In Sweden I was just one of the swimmers, nothing really special. I'm surprised sur-prised about all my success over here, I guess I thought the competition would be a lot harder than it was" she said with modesty. PIA INDICATED that it was very hard for her to compare her times and performances over here with her efforts in her native country. coun-try. "For one thing in Sweden all the races are in meters and not yards so the times would vary in that aspect. Then in Sweden there was no school competition at all, it was just clubs. You would go to a swim meet and compete against anyone, some would be younger than me while others were much older." Truth is the best finish this bubbly little blonde pulled.off in Sweden was a fourth place effort once in the 200 yard freestyle. "On my team was one of the best swimmers in the country so I knew each time I would be second at best. I can remember at some meets hoping she was sick and wouldn't swim," she laughed. BUT BACK TO her success in the pool this season. Heading into the state meet Pia was ranked second in the 200 and fourth in the 100. Things didn't get much better in the preliminary prelimin-ary races where Pia finished fourth in the 200 and second in the 100. "At that time I was scared to death but then coach took me aside and told me he felt I could win both races if I wanted to. I guess I just convinced myself I could do it and my self confidence just went up." On Friday she went for the 200 yard freestyle title, "Coach said a 1 :56.0 would probably win the race so that's what I went for." As it turned out her time was 1:56.48, which was two seconds faster than her previous best on the year, but it still gave her the gold. THEN SHE came back Saturday to try to add the 100 yard freestyle title to her name. "I was scared of the girl from Brighton. She had won the 50 free and was really fast in doing it. I knew it would be me or her for this title." After three lengths of the pool Pia was about half a body's length behind the Bengal, swimmer. "I remember the last 25 yards or so. I knew I was behind so I just closed my eyes and went as fast as I could. I looked up to breathe once and saw I was catching up so I tried just a little harder." The finish was extremely close and Pia didn't know who had touched first but then she looked at her coach on the deck, "He was jumping up and down and then I knew I'd won." Her time was 53.71 which again was two seconds faster than she had swam the race in before. AS FAR AS girls and athletics are concerned Pia sees little difference between the two countries, coun-tries, "As far as accepting girls in sports it's about the same. One difference for me was that I feel the workouts in Sweden were harder. Over there I would go to practice early in the morning, then go to school until 4 p.m. and then back to the pool for a couple of hours. Following that I worked on my homework." Swimming wasn't the only sport this lively senior was involved in as she also participated in soccer and gymnastics but she soon found out swimming was her best sport so she quit the other two to concentrate on her favorite. "It looks like I made the right choice" she giggled. PIA IS a fun loving individual, as her own swim coach puts it: "Her swimming speaks for itself but the thing that sets her apart is her personality. She's always happy, in fact a couple cou-ple of times I tried to yell at her and she just ' giggled. She's just a great individual to be around." This reporter found herjust the same as her coach had told me, she was jovial and polite during the interview and always found something funny about every topic we talked about. She has a great outlook on life and just being around her and talking to her livens up the day. It's a story in itself that she is even involved in the exchange program. "I just got one of those ideas in my head that I wanted to go to school in America. At first my father said no way and my mother tried to talk him into letting ?laj me. I'm their only child so it made it tough on them. Then as the time to leave got closer it was my father that had to convince my mother to let me go. " Now Pia is trying to convince her folks that she would like to attend college here, i The University of Utah has talked to her about a swimming scholarship. "As it stands now my mother wants me home and my father wants me to do whatever I think is best." 1 1 IF PIA DOES return to Sweden then she has two more years of school facing her provided, she is accepted. In regards to schooling in the two countries Pia sees some definite differ-WT ences. "There seems to be a lot more freedom 1Sl in Sweden. In fact you can go to school in a 5 bikini and a T-shirt. Then I believe the acade-:' mics in Sweden are tougher, everyone has (o. take set subjects. There are 31 periods in a ;rajj school week and that involves 12 different sub-i;d ; jects. English is required along with another"! P language, I took German." ft Pia is very happy about her experience here'! in the USA and she hopes to be able to tell her j-T friends about her travels. "Back home peoplei;iX think of Americans as walking around in jeans all day but people who are very open with each an other. Back home it takes a long time to get JS s someone to open up and really talk to someone else but here it's not that hard. I really love the wide open spaces of America, everything is so pretty and wide open and the mountains are great." AS FOR HER future Pia simply states she ;;M wants to be a midwife, "don't ask me where P got that idea from because I don't remember, but it's something I want to do. I've had the; JJ idea for four years and it's something I'll do." She's the type of person that will accomplish' anything she gets in her head. And she's the jr. B type of person that everyone should take the.' il time to get to know. |