St. Thomas first-year swimmer Alex Foti received Tickersmarter’s Swimmer of the Week Award on Tuesday, according to a release from the Summit League. The award follows his record-breaking performance in the 1,000 yard freestyle at the Tommies swimming home opener last Saturday.
The swimmer marked his first college event, and first college meet against Augustana on Oct. 9, finishing the 1,000 yard freestyle with a time of 9:48.56, beating the previous school record set in 2019 by senior Adam Borener, by .03 seconds.
Foti first learned that he received the award on Tuesday, after one of the team captains approached him before practice and told him the news.
“I was kind of in shock,” Foti said. “I was humbled, of course, but I was surprised when they told me. I didn’t know what to say.”
Foti said that he has been swimming for roughly 12 years, and began specializing in long-distance events while he was in middle school.
“One of my club coaches basically said, ‘Hey, you’re going to swim (the 1,000 yard freestyle) this weekend, let’s see how it goes’, and then just never took me out of the event,” Foti said.
Scott Blanchard, head coach of St. Thomas’ swim team, said that he wants to see what Foti will do next.
“Working with Alex has been great so far. He takes coaching direction really easily, he works on applying and getting faster and better,” Blanchard said. “He brings an amazing work ethic, and he doesn’t like to back off.”
But the broken record isn’t just a win for Foti, Blanchard says that it’s a win for the entire team.
“It certainly builds confidence. They see that record coming down and they know that the type of training we’re doing is paying off already,” Blanchard said. “I think we’ll see a lot more confidence as we go into each meet that we have. I’m just hoping to learn from each experience so that we can continue to make progress each and every day.”
In the meet, Foti also captured two more first place wins in the 500 yard freestyle with a time of 4:45.58 and the 200 freestyle relay with a time of 1:27.95, ending the Tommie’s first meet as a Division I program with a first place finish.
Foti wants to see what the future brings in his collegiate career with the Tommies.
“Honestly, I just want to see how far I can take it. I came here with, I guess, little to no expectations, and just came here to swim and try to improve my stroke and my times,” Foti said.
In the time since receiving the award, Foti said he’s spent more time thinking about the work prior to the race, rather than the achievement itself.
“I’m more reflecting on the race, what I can do better, and honestly, a lot of what led up to this, a lot of hard work in high school and club, and then even the hard work here. It’s just kind of like a payoff. It’s kind of nice to see.” said Foti.
The Tommies will swim against the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay on Saturday, Oct. 23 at 1 p.m in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Owen Larson can be reached at lars6521@stthomas.edu.