Out of the shadow: Wichita’s Ariana Dirkzwager cements swim legacy with Kansas titles
Right before the most important high school race of her career, Ariana Dirkzwager needed to talk to her biggest competitor.
For her entire life, Ariana had been chasing the times, records and greatness of her older sister, Astrid, a 10-time gold medalist at the Kansas high school state swimming meet and current Division I swimmer at Georgia Tech.
While they were at Wichita East High School together, they had a bond typical for siblings close in age: a foundation of love, but an ongoing, unspoken competition to see if the younger sibling can out-do the older.
In the two years since Astrid graduated, Ariana came to realize something: she didn’t have to be better than her older sister; she just had to be herself.
“After growing up in her shadows, I learned I needed to race for myself instead of trying to live up to those expectations and trying to break her old records,” Ariana said.
That maturation culminated on Saturday at the Shawnee Mission Aquatic Center when Ariana, looking to quell her nerves, sought out her older sister in the stands before she attempted to not only win a state title in a new event, but cut time to earn All-American status in the 200-yard freestyle.
“She was really nervous and she came up to me and was like, ‘What if I don’t cut time?’” Astrid said. “I told her, ‘Just do the swimming and the time will come by itself.’”
And that’s exactly how it played out with Ariana delivering a near flawless performance to win the Class 6A championship in the 200-yard freestyle in a career-best time of 1 minutes, 50.32 seconds — meeting the standard for All-American consideration.
Ariana was overcome by pure joy when the time flashed on the screen, but she had the presence of mind to pick out her sister in the stands. And when the sisters finally made eye contact, no words were spoken but they didn’t need to be in what both say will be a moment they will remember for the rest of their lives.
“It means the world to me to have my sister here because she’s my best friend and her support has helped me so much,” Ariana said. “I honestly don’t know where I would be without her. She brought me into this sport and when we were younger, I was motivated to go faster to try to beat her times. But that’s not my desire anymore. Now we’re just focused on supporting each other.”
Ariana sealed a legacy worthy of celebrating entirely on its own in her final high school state meet on Saturday, winning a second individual gold medal for the second year in a row. After completing the sweep of the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard freestyle last spring, Ariana won the 200-yard freestyle and defended her title in the 100-yard freestyle in a season-best time of 51.61 seconds on Saturday.
In total, Ariana finished her high school career as a 7-time state champion — four individual and three relays — with the East record in the 50-yard freestyle and the City League record in the 100-yard freestyle. She also finished with top-15 times in Class 6A this season in seven of the eight events, which included four different strokes.
“Swimmers like Ariana and Astrid don’t come around very often here,” said East coach Joe Hutchinson. “We’re definitely going to miss that family. They’ve been a part of this team since 2017, so it’s like the end of an era.
“For Ariana to be a multi-event, multi-year state champion says a lot about how special she is. We’re going to miss her around here.”
While both Dirkzwager sisters will be gone from East High, they will be reunited this fall on the Georgia Tech swimming team after Ariana was also recruited and signed by the Yellow Jackets.
After a two-year hiatus, the sisters are looking forward to training together once again — this time with a new mindset.
“We always used to push each other in practice and I’ve missed that the last couple of years, so I’m super pumped to be able to swim with her again,” Ariana said. “That’s going to be a lot of fun.”
East tops local teams in 6A field
Led by Dirkzwager’s double-gold performance, the Blue Aces finished in sixth place in the Class 6A team standings with 148 points.
Sophomore Abby Jones also brought home a pair of medals from her individual races, finishing fourth in the 200 individual medley (1:14.39) and and sixth in the 100 butterfly (1:01.33).
Dirkzwager and Jones were both on the medal-winning relays for East, as they were joined by seniors Alida Nola and Sophia Randle on the 200 free relay team that placed fourth (1:42.83) and by seniors Andrea Nguyen and Randle on the 400 free relay team that placed fourth (3:45.22).
Campus junior Sayler Roberts was another two-time state medalist, as she placed third in the 100 backstroke (59.72) and fourth in the 200 free (1:57.03). Wichita Northwest junior Trinity McDowell took seventh in the 50 free (25.27), while Derby sophomore Ana Self finished runner-up in the diving finals with a score of 391.8 points.
This story was originally published May 23, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
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