Charger Choi Sets Focus On State Swim Championship
By Jack Danilewicz
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The unwavering consistency that Daren Choi brings to competitive swimming is perhaps more understandable after seeing him in the moments before he wins yet another race.
“I can’t really explain it,“he said. “It’s a place (in his mind) where I concentrate to get myself ready for a race.”
His sister, Shanelle Choi, knows that look.“He knows when to turn on this mind-set - a determination to do his best,” she said.
For Daren Choi, there is no better time than the present. This Friday and Saturday, he’ll represent Pearl City High School at the 2009 State Swimming & Diving Championships at Central Oahu Regional Park.
Choi enters the event with huge hopes, having burst onto the prep swim scene like a meteor Jan. 28, when he won both the 100 freestyle and 100 backstroke at the OIA championships. His time of 52.15 seconds qualifies as a high school All-American mark in the back-stroke, according to his coach, Ken Suenaga. That time also eclipsed the old record (in Hawaii) of 54.15 seconds set by Kalani’s Thomas Yi in 2008. Choi’s feat is magnified in that he is only 14 and a freshman. He enters the state meet having gone undefeated in both of his events this season.
Ironically, swimming was not exactly Choi’s activity of choice at first. His mother, Sue Anne, enrolled him in swimming lessons mainly because his sister was already involved. (Shanelle also will swim in the state meet this weekend, having qualified in both the 50 freestyle and 100 butterfly).
“I didn’t like the water when I was younger,” Choi recalled. “A good friend of mine, Kevin Arakaki, who had started before me at the Kamehameha Swim Club, helped me through that.”
Although Choi had started swimming at 6, his interest in competitive swimming increased rapidly around the age of 13. “I became a lot more serious then,” he said. “I started winning when I was10, and I just stuck with it.”
Although Choi competes for the Chargers, he spends his practice time during the week (3:45 to 5:30 p.m.) at Kamehameha’s Kapalama campus, where he gets further instruction from John and Kevin Flanagan as well as Jarred Heine.
“Practice is major for me. It’s how I get better,” said Choi, who increased his practice schedule last week from five days to six in preparation for this weekend’s meet.
While certainly in line for innumerable college scholarships offers, if all goes according to plan, Choi will try for the 2012 Olympic games in London. He would be a senior at Pearl City by then.“My coach says that not a lot of 14-year-olds can do that, so the Olympic trials are my first goal. If that can happen, I’ll try it.”
Friday’s swimming trials begin at 3:30 p.m. Saturday’s finals are set to start at 1 p.m.
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