By Swimming World Intern Carmen Triola<\/i><\/p>\n
PISCATAWAY, New Jersey, January 12. BEWTEEN races, twins Karen and Alicia Iizuka are, in typical sibling fashion, in the middle of an argument. Both 14 years old and swimmers for Scarlet Aquatics, neither can decide who is the better athlete.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know she\u2019s faster than me,\u201d Karen says. <\/p>\n
Alicia fervently denies it, saying Karen beats her at everything except the breaststroke. They keep at it for a few minutes, before they start giggling and come to a diplomatic conclusion: there is no concrete answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like most twins wouldn\u2019t like competing against each other,\u201d Karen said. Still, she adds, \u201cyou don\u2019t get lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two talked about their mutual love for shopping, reading and their shared group of friends (essentially all fellow swimmers), until conversation quickly goes back to swimming. Both talk about it just as passionately. Alicia started when she was seven, to help her asthma, and Karen, who does not share the condition, joined her shortly after.<\/p>\n
\u201cSwimming takes up our whole life,\u201d Alicia said. <\/p>\n
They are, however finding the competition getting steeper as they enter high school, they said. At 12, they were with the lower groups within Scarlet Aquatics, but soon enough they\u2019ll have to compete with senior level groups \u2013 they turn 15 soon \u2013 and adapt accordingly. They fully plan on swimming in college as well, probably at Rutgers, where their older sister attends. Until then, though, they\u2019re enjoying what they learn at Scarlet Aquatics, and from each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe give each other tips, and cheer for each other,\u201d Karen said. <\/p>\n
Still, there are downsides. It\u2019s enough to get confused normally as twins, but being on the same team, people inevitably compare the two in their training. In general, though, the comparisons aren\u2019t too bad. One always pushes the other to be much better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Swimming World Intern Carmen Triola PISCATAWAY, New Jersey, January 12. BEWTEEN races, twins Karen and Alicia Iizuka are, in typical sibling fashion, in the middle of an argument. Both<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":44674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[25023,25025,101,24905,25024,518,9735,4282,24926],"class_list":["post-44673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-usa","tag-alicia","tag-alicia-iizuka","tag-athlete","tag-carmen-triola","tag-karen-iizuka","tag-new-jersey","tag-piscataway","tag-rutgers","tag-scarlet-aquatics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n