In Canadian swim racing, progress is measured in metres.
In the United States, the yardstick still rules the pool.
So when former Prince George Barracuda Swim Club member Hannah Esopenko went south to Texas to study biology at the University of Houston she ditched the metric system and opened up a new book to record her personal best times.
It didn’t really matter, Imperial or metric. By any measurement, Esopenko was still fast in the water.
During her four years at Houston, the Cougars ruled the NCAA’s American Athletic Conference (formerly known as Big East), and with Esopenko creating ripples as a breaststroker, butterfly and individual medley specialist, the women’s team wrapped up its sixth-straight conference championship.
“We were predicted to lose and we ended up winning by (half a point), that was probably my favourite university memory,” said the 22-year-old Esopenko, now in her second month of medical school in Kelowna.
“I was so lucky to be part of a team that had a lot of success. It was such a good group of girls, so hard-working and so talented, and while I was there we won all four of our Phil Hansel Invitational meets. Everything was different for me because it was in yards; I was getting best times every year because I didn’t have any (Imperial system) times.”
Esopenko was only six when she started swimming with the Barracudas. She kept at it for 12 years and it taught her much about how to be a multi-tasker. She graduated with honours from College Heights Secondary School and majored in biology at Houston, then decided during her third year to gravitate to medical humanities, which showed how her interest in social sciences and the arts could be applied to health studies and patient care.
“I think swimming was such a huge influence on my personality and how I live my day-to-day life,” she said. “ Just to be busy at such a young age taught me about commitment, time management, how to prioritize what you want to and how to form goals and strive to complete them and have the tools, not only mentally but physically, to reach them.
“Through sport, in general, you create such a good relationship with the people around you and it becomes such a good support network to have.”
She’s getting a similar feeling of camaraderie from her medical school classmates, all striving to become doctors. Esopenko was one of 32 students accepted into Southern Medical Program based at UBC-Okanagan in Kelowna and so far she’s thoroughly enjoying the 35 hours of class time each week it requires.
“It’s interesting to be surrounded by so many likeminded people - I’m surrounded by 31 other students who are in the same place as me mentally, just on the same journey of going through this same experience and honestly, it’s really cool,’ said Esopenko. “Everyone is super-supportive and eager to learn together and help each other out. I like the smaller class sizes and I’m very happy where I am.
“The classes we’re taking now are all relevant to the things we need to know for our future career. It’s a lot more interesting and engaging and the way they present the material is very well thought out. It’s more hands-on. All the things I learned in undergrad about viruses and DNA and RNA and how it affects the human body and learning about diseases and cancer and all that kind of stuff is more applicable. Seeing it first-hand or experiencing it in real life setting is easier to remember and just makes the learning experience more interesting.”
She still swims recreationally and finds it helps her relax and get revived after a long day at school. Now just a month into her studies, she says it’s too early to tell what kind of doctor she will become. It could be pediatrics or family medicine or even psychiatry, but whatever she decides she hopes to eventually come back to hang her shingle in her Prince George hometown.
There are 288 medical students in this year’s provincial intake, including 32 in Kelowna, 32 at the Island program in Victoria and 32 in Prince George in the Northern Medical Program based at UNBC. The other 192 are in the Vancouver Fraser Medical Program in Vancouver.
Another former Barracuda, Kayla Korolek, is in her second year at the Southern Medical Program and she’s been especially helpful to Esopenko, sharing what she went through in her first year.
“I grew up with her and we’re super-close - she’s a year older than me and it’s nice to have a friendly face in a new city,” said Esopenko. “To have gone through the experience prior to me, if I have any questions I can go to her.”
Esopenko part of long line of Prince George Barracuda success stories
Swimming lengths of pool day after day takes unfailing discipline and in his time as Barracudas head coach Jerzy Partyka has seen how young athletes like Esopenko and Korolek have driven themselves to succeed as swim racers by grinding out the hours of practice their schedules demanded.
Esopenko and Korolek are among several Barracudas alumni who have gone on to professional careers, using postsecondary scholarships as their springboard. That list includes orthopedic surgeon Kit Moran (Dalhousie University), physiatrist Marcin Partyka (University of Alberta/Poznan University in Poland), lawyer James Burg (Dalhousie), dentist Andrew Sweet (University of Alberta), optometrist Jennifer Wilczek (University of Portland) dentist Michelle Wilczek (Poznan University), U of A medical student Sterling King and aspiring lawyer Avery Movold (still swimming at the University of Calgary). Another swimmer Partyka coached, Grant Woodrich, left the Williams Lake Bluefins for the U of A and medical school in Australia and is now practicing family medicine in Prince George.
“It’s nice to see all these kids over the years be so successful with everything they touch,” said Partyka.
“If I look back 30 years, when I came to Prince George, we have had so many kids who finished university with degrees in medicine and become lawyers and lots of different things,” he said. “Talent is not enough, you have to be smart but you have to have the work ethic and discipline. We teach them to have self-discipline and how to organize themselves.”
As competitive swimmers, they swam laps early in the morning, after school and on Saturdays then hit the road for weekend swim meets at least once every month just to test themselves against their provincial peers.
“If you’re spending 22 hours a week for training and going for competition at least once a month for competition you have to be organized to do your homework and have enough sleep to recover from training and they are training really hard and not everybody can do it,” said Partyka.
“When you have a kid who is 13 or 14 years old and never misses a practice during the week, and you have another kid who is missing two or three practices a week because he has homework, you can see right away which one is going to be successful. All these things that sport does creates lots of good people, not just good athletes but good citizens and people who are working, and Hannah is one of them. She had the passion for swimming and that’s why she is where she is right now.”
