“They wouldn’t even let me on the swim team because I needed help to swim one lap without basically drowning,” Hadley Petronello, freshman, said.
Much has changed since that 6-year-old summer season at the local neighborhood pool. Petronello qualified for the state championships with a time of 57.79 in the 100 backstroke at the Oak Marr district finals. Taking inspiration from Olympic swimmers such as Regan Smith and Missy Franklin, both record-breaking women’s Olympic athletes in backstoke the stroke Petronello swims the most. However, states are just the first part of her goal, setting her sights on the Olympics and committing to a D1 college to further her swimming career.
“I would love to swim at a D1 college, I mean, that’s always been my dream,” Petronello explained.
Petronello takes pride in swimming and her focus on training, swimming at least four days a week. It’s easy to assume that she would have been swimming seriously from a young age, but she began swimming at her home pool, as a Stratford Shark, at age six, but she didn’t get serious about swimming until after COVID. She started to get into her “groove” of swimming, as she calls it, and realized her true talent and love in the sport.
After she realized her talent in swimming, she began to put in the same amount of effort and dedication she does today. Spending at least five hours weekly in the pool, committing weekends traveling to the next meet, and sometimes competing at out-of-state meets.
“There have been around 100 times she hasn’t been able to hang out because she had a swim meet or practice. She has so much dedication to the sport. It’s so cool to watch; I admire it,” Close Friend Delaney Dean (Freshman) said.
Hadley’s passion and love for the sport can be seen in competitions and meets. You can watch how much Hadley has accomplished and achieved in each race she swims. Come watch that dedication playoff in the water at States! The State Championships will be held at Hampton Aqualex Pool in Richmond this weekend, February 16th, 2024.