Castlegar Aquanauts swimmer James Pilla blew the competition out of the water at the 2011 BC Provincial Swimming Championships on Aug. 15-21 in Richmond, coming home with three golds and one silver. Pilla, who competed in Division six, won gold in 50 metre butterfly, 50 metre freestyle, and 100 metre backstroke and silver in 100 metre butterfly. The only thing that kept him from a clean sweep of gold was a tactical error.
"I made a mistake in my butterfly finals race, that if I could, I would go back and change," said Pilla, who is 17 years-old. "I was trying to change up my breathing but that happens; that's sports."
Pilla was pleased to be able to beat his previous mark of two golds at the 2010 provincial swim meet.
"There was more pressure this year because I was ranked pretty fast going into it, but less pressure because I knew what it was like and
I was pretty prepared for it," said Pilla who went into the provincial meet having broken two West Kootenay regional records including a mark in the 50M butterfly that was 19 years old.
Going up against the top swimmers in B.C. pushed the Castlegar swimmer into even faster times.
The atmosphere at provincials is what just pushes you to be better, said Pilla. "You go into a race and the people there, the competition there - you know have to try a lot harder to even get close to those goals."
In order to achieve success at an elite level Pilla has put in a lot of time and pushed himself hard in practice.
"Really, it's all about how hard you want it," he said. "It helps to have someone train with you and I've been fortunate to train with (Aquanauts teammate) Nick Welychko. In general though, it's all on how hard you push yourself in practice. Outside of practice, how much dry land you do and how prepared you get for it."
Welychko, a 19-year-old division seven swimmer, also excelled in Richmond, winning two golds (200 metre individual medley and 100 metre backstroke) and a bronze (100 metre free style).
For aspiring swimmers, Pilla recommends practicing hard and never giving up.
"You're going to have times when you make a mistake, you lose or get disqualified," he said, "but you have to get over that and learn from it and move on. It's the determination you bring."
In order to focus even more on his swimming, Pilla, who is entering grade 12, is moving down to the Lower Mainland to swim with the Simon Fraser Academy (SFA) winter club team out of Burnaby.
"They're a joint program with the Simon Fraser University (SFU) swim team. I'll be billeting with a family while I'm there," he said. "Pretty much if you want to go anywhere as a swimmer, you've got to get to the coast."
Pilla is looking forward to the different coaches he will be working with at SFA. "The teams are very, well put together. The club I'm going to is a small, talented group of swimmers. The Lower Mainland is kind of where all the swimmers go to train," he said. "The best part is that SFA is affiliated with Simon Fraser University, which is in the NCAA. So if you move on to SFU can get to compete against the U.S. and the options open up to train there."
Another benefit of heading to the Lower Mainland for Pilla is the opportunity to compete against his friend and Aquanauts teammate Welychko, who is looking at swimming for Langley's Trinity Western University.
"All the major meets I'll be racing him," said Pilla. "It'll be exciting."
With five more years until 2016, Pilla has his eyes set on competing in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics as a swimmer. Not lost on him is the fact his Aunt Wendy was set to compete as a swimmer in the 1998 Seoul, Korea, Olympics, but had to pull out due to an injury.
"She's one of the people I've looked up as a swimmer. All that put together has made me decide to pursue this goal," said Pilla.