Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Swim International 2011



This weekend also marked Brantford's annual Swim International meet. Brantford has struggled with air quality for a few years. Although this was better than previous years, I'm still feeling it today (Tuesday).... and I'd do it again. I LOVE that pool! So fast! Sacrificing a couple days of health is worth it.

A few exciting things about the weekend.

Top Stories:

1.) PARENT SAVES DROWNING BOY: During 13-14 200fly, a boy came off the wall, choked on water, panicked and was in legitamite trouble. None of the lifeguards saw this happen and none were available to help so a random parent dived into the water to save the boy. Perhaps more amazing than the event itself is that, with so many races being video taped no one got the actual event on video and uploaded it to youtube or contacted the media. What an incredible turn of events! Hats off to you, brave and selfless spectator!

2.) BROKEN RECORDS: 2 more club records this weekend by Kyle Haas - 100BK (56.57) and 200BK (2:03.28, which is also a Swim International meet record). Matt Fox and Kyle Haas both won all backstroke events for 14 year old boys (Matt Fox's 1:01.38 100BK and 2:14.46 200BK are very competitive Nationally) and 15-16 boys. A lot of best times and top 8 places in other events. Well swum by everyone!

3.) NEW BABY: Congratulations to Chris Henderson and his wife, Mallory, on the birth of their first child, Sophie. We're all very happy for the arrival of this beautiful 7lb alarm clock. In all seriousness, congratulations guys! I couldn't be happier for you!

As far as the weekend went, HHBF represented itself well with lots of individual races, PBs, top 8 finishes and relay top 8, finishes. It was pretty evident to me that, at a meet of this calibre, were up against athletes that aren't afraid to get up and race, something that our club is still learning to master (many admitted that the atmosphere was freaking them out a little). 2 more things that I also noticed were the amount of time that it took for many of our athletes to change direction in their turns was much longer than other teams (ie: flip time) and the drop off in splits from first half to second half also seemed much higher on our team compared to others. These are things that I intend to focus on intensely before our next tests in December.

Our athletes swam well (Sam Burwell and Clancy Harris first time under 1:10 for 100FR was a great example of this) and we continued our spirit and team support through the meet. I've gotta say; so far, I'm very impressed with HHBF swimming. The key now is to continue to get faster through attention to detail; Lets make sure this happens.