Joyce Wu is often easy to spot during swim meets. The Holton-Arms School senior is usually finishing first in her races. And until this year, Wu also was easy to hear – she is the unofficial carrier of the plastic blue horn that has been passed down by members of the Panthers’ swim team.
The Washington Metropolitan Prep School Swim Dive League banned the use of noisemakers prior to the school year, so Wu might be a little more inconspicuous, but she continues to raise her profile with her success in the pool.
This past weekend, at the WMPSSDL championships, Wu finished first in the 200 individual medley (2 minutes 7.47 seconds and 100 breaststroke (1:04.17) and swam the breaststroke leg of Holton’s winning 200 medley relay as the Panthers repeated as the girls’ champions.
“The horn as made a few appearances this year,” Holton Coach Malena Lair Ferrari said. “Maybe in the locker room at the end of a meet or other times like that.”
For her efforts, Wu was named the Montgomery County Sports Hall of Fame High School Athlete of the Week.
Each week throughout the school year, the Montgomery County Sports Hall of Fame is partnering with Montgomery Community Media to honor an Athlete of the Week from the county’s more than 40 public and private high schools.
The fall Athletes of the Week were presented with a commemorative hat and certificate at the Montgomery County Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2022 induction ceremony in December.
Wu swims year-round for the Rockville-Montgomery Swim Club and she will swim next year at Northeastern University. She is a versatile swimmer, able to compete in a variety of events, but her specialty is the breaststroke – a discipline normally associated with recreational swimmers.
“It is considered one of the harder strokes to perform at a high speed and it is a really technical stroke, very specific in the way each part of the stroke needs to perform,” Lair Ferrari said. “You say breaststroke and people think about grandmas and grandpas staying afloat, but to swim breaststroke is not an easy feat and she does it with elegance.”
Lair Ferrari attributed Wu’s success not only to her hard work at practice, but also to her spirit on the pool deck during meets. While other swimmers might prefer to block out any distractions and focus on their preparations, Wu is almost always found rooting on her teammates.
“She allows herself to be carried by her teammates and the atmosphere on the pool deck,” Lair Ferrari said. “Joyce is super supportive and you can always find her cheering behind her teammates’ lanes. She thrives on the success of her teammates, allowing herself to perform well in her swim, knowing she has performed well in practice.”
