In their fourth year of competition, the Concordia-St. Paul women’s swimming & diving team is riding a wave of success thanks to talented student-athletes from across the globe.

In early December, the Golden Bears claimed their first invite win in program history by edging Macalester by two points.

“We were just ecstatic,” Concordia-SP head coach Rachel Busch told KSTP. “It was very cool to sit back afterward and think ‘Wow, two years ago we had two women competing at this meet and now we had 14.”

Junior Farida Maher is one of the standout swimmers on the team. In their victory at the Roger Ahlman Invite, Faher collected first-places finishes in the 100, 200, and 500-yard freestyle races and also helped the Golden Bears to school-record finishes in the 200-yard freestyle relay, 800-yard freestyle relay, and 200-yard medley relay.

Maher comes to St. Paul all the way from Cairo, Egypt. The team has student-athletes from six countries outside of the United States: Brazil, Germany, Egypt, Italy, Belgium and Hungary.

“They’re all my best friends,” Maher told KSTP. “We’re like family. It really helped the team because nobody ever felt left out because we all went through the same thing.”

Concordia-St. Paul hosts a double-dual against the University of St. Thomas and Minnesota State on January 20 at the Two Rivers Aquatic Center in Mendota Heights.

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