10 Yr Old Swimmer Sets 5 New BDA Records
Our readers will recall our story a week ago about Mitch Gariepy who won 5 medals at a Florida swim meet. To add the proverbial icing on the cake, confirmation has come that the 10 year old swimmer set five new Bermuda National Age-Group Records during the meet; 50m Breaststroke, 100m Backstroke, 100m Breaststroke, 100m Butterfly and 200m Individual Medley.
The young swimmer was part of a twenty strong team sent by the Bermuda Amateur Swimming Association (BASA) to the Coral Springs Swim Club (CSSC) Long Course Invitational Swim Meet in Florida late last month. The event saw over 500 swimmers competing.
Mitch entered seven events, which was the maximum number of events permitted for the meet, made the finals of each event, and won five medals [three gold] as well as an overall trophy. His record setting times [in the boys 9-10 age group] were:
- 50m Breaststroke – 0:39.64
- 100m Backstroke – 1:23.73
- 100m Breaststroke – 1:29.75
- 100m Butterfly – 1:23.02
- 200m Individual Medley – 2:50.37
The ten year old is a student of Somersfield Academy, and is the son of Louis and Theresa Gariepy. He is a member of the Sharks Swim Club, has been swimming for four years, and when we asked what his plans are for swimming in the future, he smiled and said “to go far”.
Mitch wasn’t the only record setting swimmer in the meet; Nicholas Patterson set a new record in the Boy’s 15 Age Group 100m Butterfly, while two relay teams [age 11 & 12 yrs old] set new records in the 4×50 Medley and 4×50 Freestyle. The relay swimmers who joined together to put forward an excellent effort to set these new national records in the two relays were; Shannon Hassell, Anna Harrington, Somer Froud, Erin Haydon, and Erica Hawley.
Bermuda’s swimmers have been excelling recently, as in addition to the success achieved at the Florida swim meet, earlier this month the Bermuda National Swimming Team won 17 medals at the 2010 Caribbean Island Swimming Championships in Cuba, Bermuda’s highest ever medal haul at the Caribbean Games. In addition to the record high medal win, the team came home with one new Caribbean record courtesy of Keira Aitken and two new Bermuda relay records; one broken by a staggering 17 seconds.
