Seniors to swim for world titles

Doris Prokopi, 64, and Rosie Vijil, 65, are in Germany competing in the World Masters Swimming Championships.

By STEVE LEE

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 28, 2000

LAND O'LAKES -- Every summer, thousands of European tourists flock to Tampa Bay area beaches for some fun in the sun.

In a reversal of sorts, two Pasco County seniors are in central Europe for a summer swim.

Doris Prokopi and Rosie Vijil are in Munich, Germany, to compete in the World Masters Swimming Championships that begin Saturday and run through Aug. 7.

Winning medals is nothing new for Prokopi and Vijil, who each have won or placed at the state and national levels.

Prokopi, 64, won 10 gold medals at a 1998 competition in Fort Pierce and has dozens of gold medals for winning times in the Florida Senior Games.

Vijil, 65, is a U.S. Masters All-American in the 400-meter relay. She also is ranked ninth in the nation in the 200 breaststroke.

Prokopi, raised in Germany, said winning in her native country would be special. Especially if her 90-year-old mother, Barbara Manger, is watching.

"She can't go (to Munich). It's too far," said Prokopi, who has been in Germany since June to visit her mother in Cologne, a six-hour train ride west of Munich. "She said, "I'll watch you on television."'

Vijil, of Holiday, has been a swimming instructor since 1960, but did not begin swimming competitively until 1972. That's when she joined a masters program at a pool in Huntsville, Ala., where she was an aquatics director.

"I always came home with a first-place medal," Vijil recalls of her initial competitions.

Prokopi, a Land O'Lakes resident, has not competed as long as her friend, having entered her first meet in 1993. She estimates she has competed in 170 meets since then and added she has no plans of slowing down any time soon.

Prokopi's competitions as a master swimmer have taken her to 20 states as well as to Ottawa, Ontario. This trip, however, is the farthest Prokopi has traveled to test her mettle in the water. It also should be her mightiest challenge.

"It's going to be a tough one, because the Germans are tough," Prokopi said.

Prokopi said her times have not dipped much since the first couple of years she began winning medals, "but I'm still doing okay," she said. "I still train hard every day."

Two hours a day, six days a week to be exact, Prokopi added.

Though they train separately, Prokopi and Vijil get together in the Trinity YMCA pool three times a week.

"Swimming with Doris is fun, because we talk," said Vijil, who admits Prokopi is the faster of the two.

"I can't help but feel jealous to a certain extent, because she hasn't been swimming for as long as I have," Vijil continued. "But she's more dedicated."

"She needed to get her times up so I'm pushing her," Prokopi said. "She's improved her times. She really got good."

Vijil took some time off (1992-97) from training to recover from a rotator cuff injury. She defied her doctor's prediction that she would never swim competitively again.

"I was frustrated," she said. "I said, "That's not going to happen. Swimming is my life.'

"Those five years I didn't forget how to swim, but I lost my pick-up-and-go. I lost my speed. I had to start over."

At Munich, Prokopi feels she has a shot at winning medals in the 200 butterfly, 200 breast and 400 individual medley.

Vijil hopes to earn medals in the 50 breast, 100 breast and 200 breast.

With the world championships looming and her trip fast approaching, two weeks ago Vijil had a fleeting thought.

"I'm scared stiff," she said, adding that she "hired a coach (Joe Biondi from Clearwater's Long Center) so I wouldn't look dumb over there."

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