As a child, Palmetto High School senior Matthieu Vatinelle watched his parents compete in endurance sports—either running, cycling or swimming.
“We had a house with a pool, my parents, I watched them swim,” he says. “Now it’s my passion. I can’t do anything but swim.”
That led him to go for the long distances races as a swimmer.
“Long distance makes me feel at home when I swim,” he says. “I love it. The rush I get when I swim makes it worth it.”
Vatinelle swims the mile – 1,650 yards. It’s 66 laps in yards and 30 laps in meters. The race takes 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the swimmer.
This is his fourth year on the Palmetto Swim team and he’s a consistent winner in his races. He qualified to swim at the state championships last year and came in the twelfth. He’s improved on his times so he hopes to finish in the top six or better this year. Those improving times will also help him with his goal to swim competitively in college.
He’s sent out a few recruiting questionnaires and he’s been in touch with several coaches and plans on school visits.
“Not many people enjoy doing long distance like I do,” he says.
Schools on his list include Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Duke and Harvard. Outside of school, Vatinelle swims for the AK Sharks. Their home pool is at Westminster Christian.
“In the summer we have a program where we teach kids how to swim,” he says.
He taught at the camp each summer since his freshman year and he usually teaches the five-and-six-year olds. The majority are first time swimmers.
“A few have passed through the program before so they are acclimated to the water but for the majority, it’s the first time,” he says.
He’s found that the children have a better experience if the instructors greet them before camp starts, while they are arriving with their parents.
“We meet them, play with them, so they trust us,” he says. “If they are laughing and having a good time they will be more inclined to put their heads in the water and blow bubbles.”
He’s successful as a teacher because he treats each kid like his younger brother or sister.
Vatinelle believes learning to swim is critical.
“The majority of people don’t truly know water skills,” he says. “We live in Florida. If you fall in the water, the first thing you have to do is go for that wall.”
At Palmetto, Vatinelle is a member of the National Honor Society and he plans to join the English National Honor Society this year. In ninth grade, he was a part of the French Honor Society. That was fitting since he has dual citizenship with France and is fluent in French.
In college, he plans to major in pre-med. His goal is to become a trauma surgeon. That’s been his dream since he was eight years old and witnessed what happened when he walked into a country club and heard a man screaming.
“I saw the pool of blood on the ground,” he says. “He had fallen and shattered his arm. The bone was sticking out of his arm.”
From that moment, he felt that he had to find a way to help someone like that. He would go home from school and watch videos of surgeries being done. In December, he plans to shadow a neurosurgeon. His sophomore year he volunteered for a few days at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
