Swimmer not wet behind the ears

At any given high school swim meet, Rasmus Skjaerpe is at least three, sometimes five years younger than his competitors.

It doesn't seem to faze the 13-year-old Tampa Prep seventh-grader, who consistently manages to beat a lot of the older swimmers.

"Watching him swim, he doesn't look like a 13-year-old," Tampa Prep swim coach Jason Bowes said. "I know he's young, but he's very mature about his training. He's a very hard worker. He will go until he can't go anymore.

"He's got an incredible work ethic."

Skjaerpe recently competed in the 32nd annual Florida Swimming Pool Association's Swimming & Diving Invitational with the top high school swimmers in the state. He made it to the finals of the 100-meter backstroke, finishing 15th overall with a Hillsborough County best time of 58.37.

Though only in middle school, Skjaerpe is one of the leaders on the Terrapins high school swim team. But his contributions to Tampa Prep this season almost didn't happen.

When his father retired from the Norwegian military, the family was going to move to Germany, where the elder Skjaerpe had secured a job. It wasn't until a week into the school season that the Skjaerpes made a decision to put down roots in the Tampa Bay area.

Skjaerpe found out just how much he means to the Tampa Prep swim team when he walked onto the pool deck during a practice soon after school started.

"We were all shocked to see him," Bowes said. "I jumped in the water with him, and all the kids got out of the pool and welcomed him back.

"He fits in perfectly with this team."

Skjaerpe began swimming in his native Norway when he was 9 years old. He made his first Junior Olympic cut time two years later, after the family had moved to Tampa.

"There was a wait list to play soccer, so I thought I would try swimming since there was no wait list," Skjaerpe said. "I started liking it a lot, and I got better at it."

Skjaerpe has improved so much that dreams of the Olympics are not that farfetched.

"He's very, very talented, and he's also extremely young," Bowes said. The Olympics are "something that he knows, and I know, he could do, but we don't necessarily talk about it.

"But it is a goal."

Skjaerpe's current goal is making it to state this year. As a sixth-grader last year, he failed to qualify. But given his performance at the recent FSPA event, getting to state this year is a realistic goal.

"He's really close to the majority of the (school) records, which is pretty crazy because he's not even in high school yet," Bowes said. "We're just trying to take one step at a time right now and develop him.

"He's just a very talented kid."