TC: What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment as a swimmer?

KF: My greatest accomplishment is probably swimming that took place out of the pool. A few years ago I decided to start participating in open water swims. I’ve swam across the East River under the Brooklyn Bridge, down the Hudson River in Manhattan, through a harbor in Mystic Connecticut, and even around the Statue of Liberty. I’ve been able to excel in these swims despite often being the youngest competitor. However, I consider my greatest accomplishment the success I had fundraising during these events, working with the Thirst project and ultimately raising enough to build a well in Switzerland in order to provide a community with clean drinking water.

TC: What led you to begin swimming?

KF: My parents put me in lessons when I was really young and I was kind of just thrown into it (literally my dad threw me in the deep end one day and said “swim kate, swim”). I did a lot of other sports growing up, but swimming was always the one I was best at so I stuck with it.

TC: Where do you think you struggle the most in your sport?

KF: One of my biggest struggles is that I really like to do other things, more specifically, it’s hard for me to focus solely on swimming because of all the other activities I do. When I am actually at practice, I always give 110%, but sometimes I have to skip practices or leave early or come late because I have theater or work or some other crazy thing.

TC: What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced during your athletic career?

KF: Counting! I have a pretty bad attention span and often during practices and during long events in meets I lose count of how many laps I have swam. There was one time during a meet that I was leading the 200 free relay and I thought it was the 400 free relay, and ended up flip turning when I was supposed to finish my swim, thereby disqualifying our whole relay.

TC: How has the season gone thus far?

KF: The season’s been pretty great this year. We are in a new league and expected to be losing a lot but so far we’ve only lost one meet. All the girls have been swimming really fast times and competing well against some of the best teams in the section.

TC: As a part of a greater team, what is your greatest contribution?

KF: I think my overall positive attitude is my greatest contribution to the team. I tend to be a really happy, hyper person so I think I do a pretty good job of hyping up the girls and cheering for my teammates. I like when people are happy and excited to swim so I always try to keep them happy, during practice and at meets.

TC: What are some of your other interests?

KF: I like acting and theater, I lifeguard and teach swimming lessons, I enjoy tree climbing, penny boarding, pogo stick jumping, and playing the kazoo!

TC: What will you be doing with your swimming career in the foreseeable future?

KF: Being an olympic athlete has never been something I was interested in. I love having fun with my sport and I don’t think I would do well in that serious of an environment, however I do hope to swim in college. This year I have been working really hard to finally make states, practicing every day to even shave my times in the milliseconds. Who knows what will happen in the future, but I’m going to keep trying for as long as I can.