Three YFD Swimmers, Molly Brickman, Sophie Siegel and Sophie Halper made a big impact on the USA Swimming Grand Prix in Minnesota. The meet featured USA Olympians and several international teams; including Ryan Lochte, Missy Frankly, Chloe Sutton, David Plummer, Dagny Knuston to name a few.

In one of the fastest meets in the 46 year tradition of the invitational, the YFD swimmers achieved several lifetime and season best performances and set two team records.

Molly Brickman and Sophie Siegel got things started by qualifying for finals in the 100 back; an event that included USA Olympian & Gold Medalist Missy Franklyn. Both Molly and Sophie Siegel improved their times from the morning prelim swim by half a second. Molly raced to a 1^st place in the D final and Sophie Siegel finished in 6^th place respectively.

Molly also swam to a season best performance in the 500 Free with a time of 5:06.34 placing her in the C final.

Sophie Halper showed off her endurance by posting a lifetime best in the 500 Freestyle with a 5:10.34 dropping over 3 seconds. She continued her hot streak in the C final of the 500 Free later that night by posting another lifetime best of 5:08.14 and went on to swim a life best performance in the 1650 Free with a time of 17:44.09 finishing 14^th over all.

The girls swam great and we all had so much fun watching Missy Franklin and Rebecca Mann break national age group records. What most impressed me was the fact that Becca Mann broke the 31-year-old national age group record in the mile and exactly 8 minutes later swam to a 3rd place finish in the 200 IM, going lifetime best of 2:03.1 in the process!

I didnt see one athlete at the meet who wasn't smiling at least most of the time. the reason why these folks are as fast as they are is because they truly are enjoying the moment, the process. They are simply HAVING FUN. what a novel idea! that's what it's all about.

Now I leave you with my favorite quote:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

We have left 25 days to TYR Cup in PA!!!

We see each day…as another day to get better and faster!

STAY TRUE TO YOUR GOALS