The oldest set six records in her sophomore year at Cornell University.  The middle child is a state record holder as a senior at Narragansett High.  The youngest, twin girls, are the stars of girls' team as juniors.

These are the Spinazzola children - Chiara, Luca, Bianca and Angelica - and swimming is their passion.

Before all of the success and accolades the four have racked up in recent years, there were swim lessons through the Red Cross at the URI Bay Campus.

That is where it all started according to mother Judy, when eldest daughter Chiara was just eight years old. 

“They all seemed to pick it up right away, and so they continued lessons that winter at the YMCA,” Judy said. “Chiara kind of started the whole thing, and they all started to like it.”

Soon after the lesson came swim teams, and it was not long after that Luca and the twins were in the pool as well.

“Chiara got into Rams [swim club] at eight, the next season Luca was six and he started, and the twins were still young at this point,” Judy said. 

“They [Luca and Chiara] switched to a team in Providence, and then the twins started when they were five. So instead of hanging around on the bleachers while Chiara and Luca were swimming they got into the pool.”

Fast forward to the present day, and each of the four are enjoying a great deal of success on various levels of competition.

Chiara, a junior at Cornell University, has already established herself as one of the best swimmers in the history of the Big Red’s program.

“I’ve had some great ones here, I’ve had champions of NCAA and some great swimmers on the men’s side and she ranks right up there with some of the great ones,” Cornell head coach Joe Lucia said.  “She is a terrific person first of all, her character and maturity bring such an element to the team.”

Lucia is certainly a man who would know what he is talking about when it comes to Cornell swimming, as he has served as the men’s coach for the past 23 years, and the women’s from 1987-96 and again from 2008-present.

“After her freshman year I’ve had the pleasure of coaching her for the past two years,” Lucia said.  “We definitely inherited her and she’s a terrific person that you can kind of build a team around.”

After breaking six school records in her sophomore year, Chiara has swam well, but quite to the level that she anticipated in her junior campaign.

“Very frankly, I know she had prior aspirations to swim better this season than she did, but she handled the adversity and didn’t buckle to it,” Lucia said.

“It’s how you handle that adversity when things aren’t going so well that separates the great swimmers. I think that is what has truly separated her as one of the great swimmers in this program’s history.”

While Chiara has enjoyed a very successful college career, brother Luca is just on the precipice of the journey that his older sister has embarked upon.

“I’ve grown up with swimming since I was six, and it’s a real big part of my life now.  I swim every day,” Luca said.  “She [Chiara] is three years older than me, we’re pretty close, but she’s been in college for three years now, so I don’t see her very often.”

This year at the Boys State Swim Meet, Luca crushed the competition and state records in the two events he entered, the 500 freestyle and 100 backstroke.

He won the 500 free with a time of 4:35.56, nearly 20 seconds faster than second place finisher Ian Dinwoodie of Bishop Hendricken, and topped Sean Paquette of LaSalle Academy by nearly six seconds with a time of 49.74 in the 100 back.

“I’ve gotten those times before, and those were not my best times so I was hoping to go that fast or faster,” Luca said. 

Each of his times were good enough to break state records set by none other than Luca Spinazzola during his sophomore year at states.

While Narragansett High does not have a boys’ team, Luca has still been able to enjoy a great deal of success on the Rhode Island Interscholastic League circuit swimming as an independent.

“Swimming independently it’s not much of a team sport, so I don’t have too much experience with high school swimming other than states,” Luca said.

The big decision for Luca in the coming weeks will be where he wants to take his talents after high school, as he has narrowed his options for next year down to the University of Southern California, the University of California—Berkley and the University of Florida.

“I’m still undecided,” Luca said.  “It depends on the quality of the school, the education, how I like the school, whether or not I like the trips there and the swim team.”

Luca and Chiara have certainly put themselves in the forefront with their success in the pool, but twins Angelica and Bianca have stolen some of the spotlight for themselves with their performances this past year at Narragansett High.

“The biggest attribute the twins have is their wonderful personalities and the way they handle the schedule that they have and their swimming,” Narragansett girls' swim team head coach Vera Kohler said.

“No matter how they do, they move ahead and focus on putting the last race behind them.  They’re also very supportive of their teammates even though they are the superstars.”

The twins helped lead the Mariners to a successful first season in Division I, in which they finished the regular season 2-5 and took fifth place at States with 156 points.

“It was good, but also difficult because we’re one of the smallest teams and we don’t have a guys’ team, so it’s kind of hard,” Angelica said.

The Spinazzola twins teamed with another set of twins in Olivia and Ana DiPrete in the 200 freestyle and medley relay teams to take second and third, respectively. 

In the freestyle relay the Mariners fell just short of a first place finish, with LaSalle taking the race by 11-tenths of a second.

On the individual level Bianca had strong meet, taking first in the 100 freestyle and backstroke with times of 52.56 and 57.60, respectively.

Angelica had a bit of a tougher meet that day, finishing fourth in the 100 butterfly with a time of 1:01.92 and seventh in the 200 freestyle in 2:07.29.

The youngest of Spinazzolas, Bianca and Angelica have had the advantage of not only being able to learn from their older siblings, but to compete against each other as they have grown up.

“We’re twins, so we’ve always had each other, which is nice,” Angelica said. 

“Swimming with each other, our teammates and our older brother and sister has definitely helped a lot,” Bianca added.

Bianca may be the eldest of the twins by 30 minutes, but both she and Angelica have embraced swimming competitively over the past few years much like their elder siblings.

“Swimming is basically our life, it revolves around swimming, basically everything we do is swimming and school,” Bianca said.  “It helps with school, because you have to be on top of school, it’s just a whole other mind set.’

“You learn so much from swimming just about being dedicated, and then just being with friends you meet so many new people,” Angelica said.

The amount of dedication each of the four has put into swimming is certainly starting to show with the sheer amount of accolades they have receive, and as bright as their careers have been, even brighter days appear to be on the horizon for Chiara, Luca, Bianca and Angelica Spinazzola.