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 Essay about Provincials/Nationals
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Ahead of us is 2-hours trip to London where our swimmers take a part at Provincials competition. At the last moment strikers of Toronto destroyed our local plans to have this meet in the neighbourhood at Etobicoke and therefore we loaded a car with movies, food and excitement, only filled with dreams, that a next strike might throw away athletes who knows-at London in UK?
We had been preparing solidly, overcame tough workouts, freezing cold water in the outdoor pool in the mornings, had a lot of fun doing relay transitions.
For the first time in the Mallards' existence, we brought to Provincials girls 11-12 years old who qualified for relays- Jessie, Michelle C, Janice and Pauline. This team was youngest there and 3 participants out of 4 might participate in the same Age group's relays next year! Suffice to say, our young girls with support from Michelle Wojcik (her ability to debut in breastroke literally shows huge potential for the future) set up 16 new club records in Fly, breastroke, Medley swimming and free!
I was very upset that Alex's virus problems didn't give her any opportunity to take a part in this meet, which she was certainly ready for, but I'm sure Alex is far from exhaustion and ready to swim faster than ever.
Some very memorable events took place at the provincials. Jessie awoke from an afternoon nap in a dream state, groggy and not fully alert. She had only seconds to prepare herself for the 400m Freestyle where she was still not completely awake. Jessie swam the first part of the race in a dream state. The second half of the race she shone as she always does. We will remember how Michelle proudly raved at how many bowls of rice she could consume before the event, and then later questioning what she should with a full stomach standing on the start block…
In the absence of some our very strong athletes, boys fiercely tried to catch up to our girls' eagerness and motivation and eventually produced quite good swims. Cameron proved that his leadership in backstroke is not a fluke with a solid performance. He's got giddiness in both smell and taste of VICTORY… Now we are all waiting for his strong appearance -debut in other parts of swimming.
Andrew popped up from nowhere presented nice sketch-of-breastroke to team mates and quite disappointed opponents as well by crashing and chewing methodically all club records in his favourite events. Aidan brings no compromise in his events-100% of personal best and having in his arsenal outstanding coordination and stroke technique; he is looking for a prospect to go to Age group Nationals next year.
Who is going to Nationals? –The BEST. Among them are committed athletes, qualified swimmers, those of them who are eager to learn something NEW in terms of EXPERIENCE.
Age Group Nationals… Montreal outdoor pools, unstable weather, heavy rain, and sometimes hard to see swimmers in adjascent lanes.
Nikita hasn't swum for more than 3 months, then returned to the pool, having only 8 practices before Nationals. There is no point to describe how you usually feel in the water having missed only THREE practices; muscles are not moving, body is stiff, extremely laboured breathing following by instant fatigue. But THREE MONTHS of forced absence for most of athletes is disaster with a long plateau during recovery. However, it is not for devoted to swimming and enthusiastic Nikita. I saw his gradual progress every day and on the last attempt, he was able to improve his best time! Just AMAZING! At the same time, Cameron made top 8 on 50 backstroke in prelims and completed this event 6th in Canada in finals with very decent time: 30.48. I noticed that Cameron's ability to adapt to tough environment is one of the best among our athletes, and I'm confident he has improved in his ability to manage complicated psychological pressure during high level meets.
I'm extremely proud of Andrew's swims. First of all, we together have analyzed in details his race and have made some adjustments, brought some new ideas; to my positive surprise, Andrew was able to complete ALMOST EVERYTHING as we discussed and trained! He was the Mallards Swim Team's youngest swimmer (12 years old) ever to compete at Nationals in 13 & under Age Group! Brilliant job and outstanding performance!
I'd like to congratulate all Mallards' Swimmers with their performance and genuinely hope that in the next year, we'll be able to bring more and ALL qualified swimmers to VIP MEETS.
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