Erika Pelaez and Kaii Winkler may appear as typical high school sweethearts at first glance — until you see their blistering speed in a pool. The two are among the most promising youth swimmers in South Florida, if not the nation.
Both face their next big test in June in Indianapolis, where hundreds of swimmers will compete at Olympic trials for the chance to go to the summer games in Paris.
Pelaez and Winkler have already broken a handful of national and state records. The 17-year-olds have been swimming in the same pond since they were little kids — around ages 9 or 10 — and feel their goal is within their grasp.
To focus on speed in the pool, they took classes at Broward Virtual School. And whether they make the Olympics this time or not, they’re both going to North Carolina State University for swimming, home of one of the nation’s top 10 collegiate swim teams.
“We’ve been dating for about three, four years. We’ve spent a lot of time with each other, pushing each other hard in practice, since we were nine and 10. So not really a big difference since then,” Pelaez said
Pelaez has been dominating youth aquatics in the country since she qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials at age 13.
She has countless state, national, international medals—including four from the World Aquatics Junior Swimming Championships in Israel last year. At age 15, she won three gold, two silver, and one bronze at the Mel Zajac Jr. International 2022 in Canada.
“The Olympics is an end goal for the future. I’m aiming for them this year. I’m a little more confident than I was when I was 14,” Pelaez said. “And I’m aiming to at least make it to the finals. That’s why I graduated early. So I could focus on just training for that this year.” said Pelaez.
Erika owes a great deal of her success to the camaraderie that comes with aquatics.
“Teammates. Pushing each other doing hard sets. We all hold each other accountable. If it was just us trying to train, it would be harder, but when you have a whole group of people pushing you and training hard, it’s kind of hard to slack off.” Pelaez said.
Due to her summertime accomplishments in the 50/100 freestyle and 100 backstroke, Pelaez was chosen for the USA Swimming 2022–23 National Junior Team, and was the fastest qualifier in September at the FINA World Junior Swimming Championships.
But she’s had her stumbling blocks too. She missed out on qualifying for the Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Hawaii two years ago.
“That was a really tough moment for me,” she said. So that year, I spent training really hard and I was able to get, I was able to qualify for World Juniors. I went from missing out on that meet by 0.02 to going to World Juniors and getting four medals for the USA” said Pelaez
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For Winkler, aquatics runs in the family. His older brother Finn Winkler is at the University of Texas men’s swimming and diving team.
He has broken numerous national highschool records, including a previous 200 freestyle in November 2023 which had been set in March of that same year.
In the 4×100-meter freestyle relay, he holds the world junior record. He took home gold in event, as well as 4×100-meter medley relay and silver in the 50-meter freestyle at the 2022 Junior Pan Pacific Championships.
“The mental aspect is definitely huge because as a swimmer our training is really harsh compared to other sports,” Winkler said. “And just the water aspect. It’s cold. But if you have had mental battles, make sure you have the support of a team. If you’re doing it all together, it’s better than being alone.”
Although his future remains bright, Winkler has suffered from some bumpy patches, including suffering from fractures in both of his arms after he was hit by a car on his way home biking from practice in late June before the 2023 U.S. National Championships.
“I feel like everyone’s gonna have some type of injury throughout their career, but it definitely sucked. Definitely was not good timing. I learned from that experience, and it got stronger,” Winkler said.
Winkler has also had to overcome an underlying fear of competition.
“Breaking through a racing mental block that I had when I was around 13 or 14, just breaking that fear of racing really just kind of opened my wings up to swimming faster and racing more confidently. So I think that’s a big part of my success.” said Winkler.
ANASTASÍA IVANOVA is a junior at the School for Advanced Studies and is part of the Key Biscayne Independent's student journalism program. She writes for her school newspaper The Wolfson Post, and wrote for The Beacon at her previous school MAST Academy. She also enjoys spending her time debating in Model United Nations conferences, volunteering with disabled children, and drinking matcha.