Coaches Wrapup: Age Groups Swim Champs

June 1, 2010

Scroll down for the coaches reviews of the Makin Waves Summer Age Group Championships which was held this past weekend. Approximately 180 swimmers took to the pool, in a meet with saw several new records set. Scroll down to read the coaches assessment, and for a photo gallery, video and scoresheet of this event click here.

Mr. Ben Smith, Aquatics Manager/National Swimming Coach said

The Makin’ Waves summer age group’s was lots of fun and saw lots of very fast swimming!

It was really great to see the number of swimmers that took part in the meet and how much cheering and support there was for all of these youngsters. The highlights were seeing so many swimmers competing in the BASA pool and watching competitors from all three clubs swim their personal best times in multiple events.

There were some swimmers that were aiming for qualifying times, but came up hundredths of a second short of their goal. We are none-the-less all proud of the efforts of all athletes in the program and whilst we always encourage success it is important that they learn there are times when they may just come up short. I hope that this meet will be an indication of the performances and excitement that we will see in two weeks at the CCS Bermuda Nationals.

Miriam Smith, Junior Coach for Sharks Swim Club said:

It was an awesome weekend for the Shark juniors where we had 28 ‘old’ juniors and 9 new shark swimmers in the summer age group meet. Several new juniors joined the Sharks club just 3 weeks ago and were confident enough to enter their first meet and perform so well under the ‘pressure’. They not only witnessed great performances from other members but now have a starting point on which to build and have success.

All the veteran swimmers also made progress. Hannah Marshall, Paige Bruton, Skyler Powell, Holly Bruton, Jada Outerbridge, Olwyn Matthews, Gio Hollis and Sierra Dietz swam all Personal Best’s (PB’s) in their events while Brynn Telenko swam all PB’s except in two events and Lucie Gariepy swam two PB’s out of 3 events. Page Bruton on her quest with all PB’s made ‘B’ times in all of her events while Matthew Morrison swam 4 ‘B’ times, Hannah Marshall swam 3 ‘B’ times and Jessyka Haak swam 2 ‘B’ times. D’Andra Seymour swam 3 ‘B’ times and 1 ‘BB’. Although this will be the last meet of the season for us, we will continue to build on the foundation so that we continue to swim stronger and faster next season.

Also commenting for Sharks, Ben Smith said:

From a Sharks stand point we are very pleased the results of the club overall. We had a very high percentage of swimmer’s with personal best times and two swimmers make the standard to be select for the Bermuda National training team. We are also happy with the Bermuda record swim of Lisa Blackburn in the 100 metres individual medley in 1:08.10, an improvement of 2/10th of a second over her previous mark set last year. Also the age group record swims of Nick Patterson and Mitch Gariepy. Mitch actually broke a 20 year old record set in 1990 when he swam the 50 metres breaststroke in the 9 and 10 age group with a sensational effort of 40.99, taking almost 2 seconds off of the previous record.

Speaking for Harbour Swim Team, Coach Richard Goodwin said:

The recently completed Makin’ Waves Summer Age Group Championships was another great swimming weekend in diverse weather conditions, which saw 2 additional records set. Once again, Emma Harvey was in the mix, as she broke her own 50 metres butterfly record in the 8 and under age group by almost 2 seconds. Rounding out the records broken was her Harbour teammate, Ashley Irby, also in the 8 and under age group, who set a new mark in the 25 metres backstroke and also was that age groups High Points Champions.

I was very pleased with way the all of the Harbour Club’s swimmers performed over the entire weekend. It was great so see them all swimming so well, setting many new personal bests, en route to challenging for the High Points Championships.

Barry Hanson of Dolphins Swim Team stated:

The summer age groups are I believe the most important meet for the great majority of Bermuda swimmers. The range of events and distances gives all swimmers an opportunity to find success. Some of the most exciting races were in the ‘B’ finals. It is also the first time that many swimmers get to experience the endurance test that is a three day meet. With 180 swimmers in attendance the atmosphere was one of great excitement.

Jude Moseley and Denis Pasagic placed 1st in all 7 of their events in addition to which Tate Crofts, Evan Farrow, Josh Irvine, Maddie Irvine and Megan Lau also medaled in all 7 events they swam!

With a special mention to Tadhg O’Shaughnessy who, having been justifiably disqualified for the unusual infraction of wearing two swim suits (for modesty purposes), went on to a blistering finish to the meet to still win his age group.

Ben Smith, closed by saying:

In the sport of swimming we spend most of our time looking at the clock to see how fast the swims are. Thanks to the sponsors we have a brand new clock that allows all of the lanes to display their own results. The swimmers seemed to appreciate it as we saw personal best times from the majority of the athletes in every session of the meet.

The final local fixture on this season’s calendar is the CCS National Championships, to be held over the second weekend of June.

For a photo gallery, video and scoresheet of this event click here.

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Comments (2)

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  1. swimventure says:

    I am very sad. Because I missed that event. :-(

  2. sunsational says:

    Great to hear, keep up the good work!