A visit with WPIAL swimming champion Kimani Gregory


Background Info: Over the last two years, Penn Hills swimmer Kimani Gregory has come into his own and become one of the best swimmers in the WPIAL. In both 2017 and 2018, he won the 100-yard butterfly at Pitt’s Trees Pool and, last season, set the meet record in the 100 freestyle with a 44.09-secomnd performance. In that 100 freestyle, he upset the previous record holder, North Allegheny’s Mason Gonzalez, by 0.05 seconds and beat the old mark by 0.08. He has already committed to swim collegiately at NC State.

Kimani Gregory on his WPIAL experience.
"It’s been really good and it has a different feel. Swimming in USA Swimming, it’s different You go from a format in a director’s meet to a format that gives you more of a feel of what college is going to be like. The only thing is that WPIAL is a two-day meet where ACC or colleges are five-day meets. It gives you a different feel of the sport going from a meet where you might swim six to nine events in a three or four-day meet to a meet where you’re only swimming two events in two days. It allows you to train more specifically for an event and the event that you’ll swim and those are your best events."

Kimani Gregory on his record-setting 100 freestyle swim.
"When I think about it, my mind kind of goes (away) and I can’t bring up everything that happened during the event just because, whenever I’m swimming I kind of zoned out. I kind of focused on myself rather than where my competitors and where Mason and Jack (Wright of North Allegheny) were. I just kind of focused on my race and it allowed me to know when to make my move. When I think about it after, I think I just want to go fast and try to push myself."

Kimani Gregory on how it will be swimming at Trees Pool for NC State rather than for a WPIAL title.
"I don’t know if I’ll come back and race, but if I was, it would be a huge turnaround because I’ll have a different type of training under my belt. I think I’ll stick to all-around training, which will help me come back and swim some of my best events. And if I set some of those pool records, I think the coaches would be really happy if I did that."