Fort Myers/Herdecke. Hurricane “Ian” started their last season in Florida with a natural disaster. How Kaja Reinhardt managed the final:
Four years at US college in Florida are not quite over for Kaja Reinhardt. However, the last sporting appearance for the Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) in Fort Myers, the 22-year-old swimmer from Herdecke has the highlight of the season behind her. At the CCSA Championships in Knoxville, Tennessee, she finished fourth overall with the FGCU team, which she leads as “Team Captain”. And swam three distances faster than ever. “It was a strange feeling to experience that for the last time with my team,” confessed the Herdecker, who is enthusiastic about swimming, after her sporting absence in a difficult season that began in Florida with the natural disaster of hurricane “Ian”.
In Fort Myers, Kaja Reinhardt belonged to a very special group of “seniors”, as the graduates of the last year of college are called at US universities. Dave Rollins, FGCU head coach of women’s swimming and diving, acknowledged this when he gave a special thank you to the outgoing aces after the four-day Coastal Collegiate Sports Association Championships in Tennesseed. “They’ve been through everything: a pandemic, a hurricane, injuries and championships,” said Rollins – and emphasized: “This season has not been without challenges and we have been able to do as well as we can. I am very happy with how we performed as a team.”
Fourth place overall
Because the FGCU team, in which Kaja Reinhardt acted as one of three “team captains” alongside the Americans Emma Hixenbaugh and Delaney Nilson, won a total of five medals in the season finale in the highest college division and finished among eleven teams in the overall ranking rank four. What Coach Rollins rated highly: “The conference has changed a lot in the past year.” Kaja Reinhardt also spoke of a “strong fourth place” and was also very satisfied with her own performance: “The championships went pretty well for me personally, with some personal bests.”
The woman from Herdeck managed to do this on all three freestyle distances she competed on. The 50 yards increased to 23.22 seconds on the first day, finished 17th in the final. Also the 100 yards (50.24 seconds, ninth place) and 200 yards (1:50.49 seconds, 12th place) she was significantly faster than her previous three CCSA Championships. And in the 30-person team of the FGCU “Eagles”, which also includes swimmers from Denmark, England, the Czech Republic and Croatia, she contributed the fourth most points to the season result.
At the Florida Gulf Coast University, to which Kaja Reinhardt switched in 2019 because of the professional swimming opportunities, she still has to do her bachelor’s thesis in environmental engineering. “I still don’t know exactly what will happen after that,” she says. She could add an extra year in the USA for her master’s degree, because of the corona pandemic, more than the usual four years of college are possible. Another city in another US state would irritate the Herdecker: “Now that’s the next step to decide.”
