ITLR: Miguel Siwady,World Junior Swimming Championships Competitor

IN THE LOCKER ROOM Miguel Siwady, World Junior Swimming Championships Competitor

Kayla Kim

Contributing Sports Editor

While most first-years were adjusting to classes and attending meetings with their Peer Advising Leaders at the beginning of the school year, Miguel Siwady was swimming at the 2022 FINA World Junior Championships in Lima, Peru where he placed 22nd in the 1,500-meter finals. He represented Honduras, where he currently has the three fastest 1,500 meter times out of anyone in the country for 2022 according to Swimcloud. Siwady is excited to study in the 3-2 engineering program, and hopes to make an impact on the swim team’s season, which officially started this week.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What was swimming in high school like, and how did you hear about Oberlin?

My school didn’t have a swim team, so I mostly did club swimming. It was called Delfines Sampedranos, one of the best teams in Honduras. I trained two times a day, three times a week. It was a really big team, but I was one of the oldest, so I had a sort of captain role in my team along with one of my training partners, who’s also my age. I heard of Oberlin because of a recruitment email from Coach Alex de la Peña. When I got that email, I researched the school. I liked its engineering program and how I could also study liberal arts here.

What is your specialty event and why?

My specialty event is the 1,500-meter freestyle. In Honduras, not many people swim at that event, so when I was little, I decided that I was going to be good in that event because no one else was. My older brother helped with that because he also swam in that event. He was a role model to me.

How has Oberlin supported you in your training for the World Junior Championships?

The beginning of the competition was at the same time as the international students’ orientation. I had to train here for a few days, even though the season hadn’t started. Coach Alex and Coach Ben Corley opened up the pool at 6 a.m. and guided me throughout my last week of training before the world championships. It was really important because it gave me a few pointers on what I needed to do to improve my technique and be fast overall.

How long were you in Peru for World Juniors, and what were the most memorable experiences?

I was there Sept. 3–5. My most memorable experiences were getting to know all these different swimmers from different parts of the world, as well as getting to swim in the biggest stage for the age group that I’m in. I got to see the best hundred freestyle swimmer in the world. His name is David Popovici and watching him swim was incredible, like a different experience. Recently, like a month ago, he broke the world record. He’s only 18 years old, so it was really cool.

What else have you done this summer?

After I graduated, I traveled to Florida and swam, swam, swam there with the swim team for a month and a half. While I was not swimming, I was spending time with my father and having some time together with my family before I went to school here.

How was the adjustment to college after attending World Juniors?

It’s been easy because the swim team is very welcoming and very big. The captains are nice people and they will help if you have a problem. We always have these Stevie sit-downs. After training, we all go to Stevie as a team and eat, and we have get-togethers to get to know each other. It’s a pretty open team, almost like a family. My goal is to have a positive impact on the team and help overall, especially in the championships. The first practice in the pool yesterday was nice because we got a feeling of the pool and swimming together for the first time.

Have you thought of any potential majors or minors?

Other than engineering, I’m interested in the Cinema Studies department of Oberlin. I know it’s very broad — there’s even a class dedicated to Hong Kong cinema, which is very interesting.

Miguel Siwady in Lane 7 swimming at the FINA World Junior Swimming Championships. Courtesy of Oberlin Athletics

Pickleball Popularity Grows at Oberlin

Continued from page 16 leading by only one point, the game continues until a team pulls two points ahead. Serving the ball is similar to tennis — the only two serves are volley and drop, and the serve must reach the opposite side of the court. To serve, one or both feet must be behind the baseline of the court.

Though the leading demographic of “core” pickleball players — people who play the sport eight or more times a year — are those 65 and older, the pandemic has brought an increase in younger players who appreciate the sport and play with family, friends, neighbors, and strangers. Third-year women’s basketball guard Jaedyn O’Reilly used to play pickleball with her grandparents and their friends at a retirement home.

“Growing up playing a lot of sports, it was cool to be able to play one with my grandparents,” O’Reilly said. “It’s a very easy sport to learn, so even if people don’t see themselves as athletic, pickleball is something they can enjoy.”

One of the recreation centers on the south side of the town of Oberlin, Splash Zone, is home to four pickleball courts. Ann McDonald, the front desk worker at Splash Zone, noted that most of the people who come in and play pickleball are 50 and older. However, there have recently been more people 30 and older who are coming to learn and play the game. Oberlin’s pickleball community has grown to the point where these players interact off the court.

“We get a large number of people who come and play,” McDonald said. “[Pickleball players] mingle with and look out for each other. Sometimes they’ll even do a potluck, and they do this on their own, not with Splash Zone.”

Students like College second-year Sam Brady have also started to gain exposure to the sport. He learned how to play for the first time while at home on break.

“It was fun and low-key,” Brady said. “I just played with friends at the beginning of winter break last year on some tennis courts. It was 60 degrees and sunny that day in Santa Fe. I felt like an investment banker enjoying retirement.”

Major cities, such as Chicago and Houston, are building more pickleball courts as more people pick up the sport. There’s even a pickleball summer camp in Huntsville, AL set to open in 2024 called “Camp Pickle.” As of today, over 60 countries have joined the International Federation of Pickleball. Because 75 countries are required to make a sport part of the Olympics, pickleball players are optimistic about the sport being included in the 2024 or 2028 Summer Olympics as a demonstration sport.

SPORTS

September 16, 2022 Established 1874

Biden Administration Negotiates Britney Griner Release

Britney Griner reacts during a game.

Andrea Nguyen

Sports Editor

Last February, WNBA player Brittney Griner was detained in Russia for possession of marijuana. She had flown into Russia to play for the UMMC Ekaterinburg, the overseas women’s basketball team she plays for during her offseason. While going through customs, officials found a vape pen with less than a gram of hash oil, a concentrated form of cannabis, stored in cartridges. A week after her detention was announced, Russia started its invasion of Ukraine. In the months following, the Russian Federation extended Griner’s pretrial detention in March, May, and June.

Her trial finally began July 1. Only U.S. representatives from the Embassy and two press representatives were allowed in the courtroom. The hearings occurred throughout the month — Griner pleaded guilty and claimed that the cartridges were left in the bag unintentionally, as she was in a hurry to pack. Additionally, she presented a note from her medical doctor stating her need to possess marijuana in order to ease her chronic pain. During her trial period, she sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden pleading for his help.

“I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey, or any accomplishments,” Griner wrote. “I’m terrified I might be here forever.”

On Aug. 4, a jury found Griner guilty and sentenced her to nine years in prison for drug smuggling and possession; the maximum allotted time for a minor charge is 10 years. Griner’s WNBA team, the Phoenix Mercury, delayed their game against the Connecticut Suns to watch her trial in the locker room before going out onto the court.

“Nine years, it’s pretty unusual and it contradicts the existing court practice in Russia,” Maria Blagovolia, one of Griner’s lawyers, said in an interview with PEOPLE. “That’s why we are really disappointed and very much surprised by this decision of the court.”

The U.S. State Department has classified Griner as being “wrongfully detained.” According to Griner’s wife Cherelle, the New York Times, and

Courtesy of Andrej Cukic the Atlantic, many suspect that she is being held as a political pawn in response to the United States’ involvement with Ukraine as tensions between the U.S. and Russia heighten.

The Biden administration has proposed a prisoner swap under the mounting pressure for Griner’s release. The last swap occurred April 27, 2022, when the U.S. Government traded Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko for U.S. Marine Trevor Reed. The proposal also expresses a desire to bring back Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine. Whelan was accused of spying and was arrested Dec. 28, 2018 while getting ready for a friend’s wedding. The U.S. State Department also believes Whelan’s charges are false.

“Russia says it caught James Bond on a spy mission,” Whelan said in court in 2018. “In reality they abducted Mr. Bean on holiday.”

Holding a sign in court behind a defendant’s cage, he wrote that this was a “sham trial.” Similar to Griner’s situation, the Russian Federation extended his detention period to June 15, 2020, when he was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Almost all of the trial was conducted behind closed doors.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in late July for negotiations — the U.S. would swap Griner and Whelan for Viktor Bout, an illegal arms dealer and former Soviet military translator. He was accused of not only smuggling arms but also conspiring to kill Americans, and is currently serving a 25-year sentence.

Griner will stay in a penal colony to serve her sentence. She may be offered an opportunity to work as a basketball coach for inmates rather than cleaning or cooking, depending on the penal colony she’s placed in. On Aug. 15, 11 days after the verdict, Griner’s attorneys filed an appeal to her sentence. No new significant updates have occurred since they requested the appeal.

“Brittney is stressed and very much concerned with the future,” Blagovolia said in her most recent update to PEOPLE on Sept. 13. “We need to use every legal opportunity that we have, and appeal is one of these opportunities.”

Volume 152, Number 2

Pickleball Fandom Grows 40 Percent During Pandemic

Andrea Nguyen

Sports Editor

Invented in 1965, pickleball is a relatively young sport. For most of its 57 years of existence it was rather niche, but its popularity has recently skyrocketed. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of players has grown by over 40 percent, and within the last six years, there has been a 650-percent surge.

Pickleball originated in Bainbridge Island, Washington, located west of Seattle. Joel Pritchard and his friends, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum, were about to play badminton with their children while on vacation but couldn’t find enough rackets to play with. Rather than continuing the search, they instead tried to play a game with what they had — ping-pong paddles, a net, and a wiffle ball. With these paddles and a perforated plastic ball, along with more experimenting in the later days and months, the game of pickleball was born.

There are three hypotheses of how the name pickleball came to be. Pritchard’s wife, Joan, claimed that the sport reminded her of a pickle boat, which in rowing refers to a boat filled with last-minute random rowers. There is also a rumor that the sport was named after the Pritchards’ family dog, Pickles, but Pickles was born after 1965; the dog was actually named after the sport. Decades later, Bell stated that the name originated from the fact that Pritchard liked to put his opponent in a difficult situation — also known as a pickle — during the game.

The game, which can be played as either a singles or doubles game, is best described as a mixture of ping-pong, tennis, and badminton. A pickleball court looks like a tennis court but is the size of a badminton court, though a lot of people use tennis or badminton courts for pickleball. The area within seven feet on both sides of the net is called the non-volley zone, also known as the “kitchen.” Coming in contact with the non-volley zone when hitting a volley, whether it is the player themselves or anything they might be wearing or carrying, is considered a fault. Only the team that is serving can earn points, but once this team loses a rally or commits a fault, it becomes the opponent’s turn to serve. Faults include failing to hit the ball, not passing the ball over the net, or volleying within the non-volley zone, among other things.

Each match consists of three games, and each game is played until a player or team scores 11 points with at least a two-point lead. If the team is

See Beginner’s, page 15