Great First Weekend of Racing for 12 & Under Rapids Swimmers

October 31, 2011

                The Richmond Rapids Swim Club had great showings at three of their developmental meets over the past weekend.  Swimmers from the Rapids Swim School competed in their first RSS Mini Meet, the 10 & under squad competed at their first PASS meet and the 12 & unders competed at the SFU/Gators LMR meet at Simon Fraser University.

                The Rapids Swim School Mini Meet is for learn to swim participants.  Children get a chance to race in short distance events for prizes and to show off their newly learned skills.  The event attracted over 50 Richmond Rapids Swim School participants.  Some great skills were shown and the atmosphere at the pool was charged with energy. 

                The PASS meet held at Watermania allowed some of the novice swimmers a chance to get in and strut their stuff.  Events were longer and swimmers were exposed to some of the other clubs in the region.  The competition was furious as swimmers attempted to achieve specific time standards which allows them to compete at some of the bigger meet events. 

Swimmers at the SFU/Gators LMR meet looked amazing.  Competing for recognition and personal bests the youngsters failed to disappoint. 

“There were some amazing personal bests achieved this weekend.  10-15 seconds in an event is a huge drop even for a young swimmer.  It was great to see we are building on the successes of last year,” says Head Coach Robert Pettifer.   The club had 2 club records broken, some brand new championship qualifiers and a huge number of top 3 finishers.

                Club records were broken by Matthew Crawford (10) in the 50 backstroke and 100 butterfly.  New AA championship qualifiers were Ethan Chan (10), Jeremy Fung (10), Adrian Hsing (11), Thomas Huen (10). 

Medalists at the meet were

Anthony Chan (10) 50 breaststroke
Matthew Crawford (10) gold 200 IM/100 free/100 fly/200 free, silver 100 breaststroke
Jeremy Fung (10) silver 200 IM/100 free/100 fly, bronze 100 breaststroke
Alisa Gagina (12) gold 50 breaststroke, silver 50 backstroke, bronze 100 IM
Run Qian Gong (8) gold 50 butterfly
Angela Gu (11) gold 50 back/50 breast, silver 400 free
Lionel Han (11) bronze 50 free
Capri Horstmann (11) silver 50 back
Adrian Hsing (11) gold 50 free, bronze 200 back/100 free/100 back
Thomas Huen (10) gold 50 breast, silver 100 back
Chris Lam (13) silver 400 free, bronze 50 breast/100 free
Nathan Liminsang (11) gold 50 back, bronze 50 fly
Austen Orr (12) silver 50 breaststroke
Kevin Ouyang (14) gold 200 back/400 free, silver 100 back, bronze 200 freestyle
Eunice Park (10) silver 100 fly
Joshua Quon (9) gold 100 fly, silver 200 IM/100 free/100 breast/100 back/200 free
Cindy Shu (9) gold 200 IM/100 free/100 breast/100 back/200 free
Dimitri Volchkov (9) gold 100 back/50 breast, silver 50 fly, bronze 200 IM/100 free/200 free
Ni Weng (10) silver 100 free
Derek Wu (10) bronze 400 free
Alice Ye (11) bronze 50 back/50 breaststroke

                At the end of the meet 11 swimmers had achieved 100% personal best times.  Pettifer attributes these successes to an increased buy in to the program and the great base of skills laid down in the previous season.

                Rapids swimmers gear up for upcoming meets in Langley and Victoria and are looking forward to their own hosted meet FastSwim at Watermania on December 2-4 weekend; finals racing starts at 5pm.

                For more information on the Richmond Rapids Swim Club for competitive swimmers or the Rapids Swim School out of Minoru Pool click on www.richmondrapids.com or call 604-275-7946.