Landing a spot on a varsity team as a freshman isn’t something that most people can say they can do, especially on a sport with almost 40 other competing members. However, sophomore Joshua Mar’s speed and agility in the water allows him to not only make it onto the Varsity Swim team both his freshman and sophomore year, but to also qualify as a competing swimmer for Junior Olympics and CIF.

As a child who always enjoyed being in the water, Josh decided to join the Arcadia Riptides Swimming Club when he was 10, and this experience allowed him to officially kickstart his competitive swimming career. Upon joining this club, Josh has competed in countless swim meets and continuously dropped time for his events, which has also moved him up among the swim rankings. Now that he’s also competing for the school swim team, Josh is focusing more on school meets rather than club meets so that he can meet his goals of “automatically qualifying in more CIF events, especially for the 100 freestyle,” which he hopes to break 50 seconds for. However, once swim season for school ends, he hopes that he will immediately start “competing for club again by swimming in events like the Speedo Far Western Championship and SCS Summer Junior Olympics.”

Managing long swim practices with a heavy academic workload can be quite hard and tiring for Josh at times, but he revealed that it’s worth the work since “being immersed in water always helps to relieve any stress” and even gives him a chance to “escape from reality.” In addition to being a great stress reliever, swimming has also given Josh the opportunity to “meet some of [his] best friends in life and to travel around the state for more competitive swim meets like Junior Olympics.”

Swimming has definitely changed Josh’s life for the better, and we can’t wait to see what future endeavors he will take on. Thank you, Josh, for taking the time to share your story with us, and we hope you’ll continue to reach all your goals and aspirations for the sport!

Photo by KALI TAM