Dream it. Believe it.

Elite Performance Aquatic Club-EPAC

 WHAT TO EXPECT

Rowdy Gaines          

 Born in Winter Haven, Florida, Rowdy unsuccessfully tried other sports during his teen-age years but turned to swimming as a Winter Haven High School junior where he improved quickly and was offered a swimming scholarship to Auburn University. At Auburn he became a five-time NCAA champion under the training of former Auburn head swimming coach Richard Quick. During one four-year period, Gaines held eleven world records and, and had the United States not boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, he would have been a favorite to win multiple medals at the event. After graduating from Auburn in 1981, he stopped swimming for several months, thinking he had missed his opportunity to be an Olympic medalist, but was urged to resume swimming by his father. When Gaines qualified at the 1984 Olympic trials, his times were not particularly impressive and he was not expected to place at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California. He won the 100 meter freestyle off a very good start and swam the anchor leg for both the winning U.S. teams in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay and 4×100-meter medley relay

Aaron Peirsol
A multiple world and Olympic champion and record holder, American swimmer Aaron Peirsol is considered the greatest backstroker of all time. Born on 23 July 1983 in Irvine, California, Aaron Peirsol was only 15 when he became the youngest American swimmer in history to break the two-minute mark in the 200m backstroke. At the age of 16 he appeared at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where he won his first medal, a silver, over the same distance, an achievement that he celebrated by having the Olympic rings tattooed on his right hip. A year later, he claimed the first of a slew of world and Olympic titles, winning gold in the 200m backstroke at the 2001 World Swimming Championships in Fukuoka (JPN), breaking the world record for the first of seven times in the process. It was the start of a long success story.