Esbjornsson takes first in Senior State Championships

Talk about it

Alexandria native Erik Esbjornsson continues to make news in the swimming community across the state after competing in the Olympic Trials last year.

Esbjornsson, a 2000 graduate from Jefferson High School, swam at the Minnesota Senior State Championships on March 13-15 and took first place in the 50-freestyle with a time of 20.52. The meet was a part of the USA Swimming State Championships and featured many of the best from across Minnesota.

Esbjornsson gave up swimming for almost six years after performing at the University of Minnesota through is sophomore season. A dream to make it to the Olympic Trials drove him to start back up again in 2007.

Esbjornsson has now rallied a few other Cardinal alumni to get back into the sport. He convinced 2004 graduate Doug McGrath, 2000 graduate Kyle Wiemer and 1999 graduate Luke Vestrum to begin training again with the hopes of breaking some records in the relays at the Alexandria Lake Swim in June.

The group hopes to break the 200-freestyle relay pool record this summer. Alexandria currently has the record time of 1:26.86, but this group wants to make sure it holds up for years to come.

“I recently got guys fired up about breaking the pool record again because we think it’s too slow,” Esbjornsson said. “We would prefer that Alex continues to hold that pool record into the future and right now it could be at risk of being broken by another team.

“We’ll see what happens. I’m sure we will each be swimming a mixed bag of individual events, too.”

Tags: sports, swimming, erik, esbjornsson, senior, championships