If you’ve been in this community for any part of the last 15 years, you’ve heard about GOST, the Greater Owego Swim Team. GOST was started in 2000 by a passionate coach, Jason Westervelt, and a few founding members. It is a parent owned organization that serves nearly 90 swimmers during a regular season.
The purpose of GOST is to provide, through training and guidance, the opportunity for swimmers of all levels to develop skills necessary to formulate and attain their goals. The club strives to not only help them to become better swimmers, but to also help them become better teammates and friends. The team is broken down into three groups: beginner, intermediate, and elite. This allows the staff of amazing coaches to help each athlete reach their full potential. Athletes come from all across the Southern Tier to be trained in the four competitive swimming strokes: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly.
GOST is a very successful group of swimmers under USA Swimming, and Niagara Swimming organizations.
They hold the ‘Bronze’ meet each year to qualify swimmers for a ‘silver’, then a ‘gold’ meet with time standards. It’s one of their largest events, bringing in teams from all across the state. They had many swimmers qualify for both the ‘silver’ and ‘gold’ competitions. The swimmers that went on to compete at the ‘gold’ meet earned 12th place out of over 60 teams. GOST also participated in the STSL Winter Championship in early March and earned 2nd out of approximately ten teams. Currently they have an elite group of swimmers participating in the Junior Nationals in Clearwater Florida.
On Monday, April 6, GOST will be holding a tryout for the spring / summer session at 5:30 p.m. at the Owego Free Academy pool. This is a great time to join as this session has both indoor and outdoor meets. Information on GOST can be found on the website gostswimmers.com and board members will be on site for the tryout to answer any questions.
Additionally, GOST holds a golf tournament fundraiser at The Links at Hiawatha each summer, the date will be announced soon on the website.
