Rapids Swimmers Have Great Weekend of Racing

November 7, 2011

                Going to the Vancouver Pacific Dolphins Swim Club’s annual Decathlon Invitational is not like going to the average meet.  In this case awards are given for swimmers cumulative time across ten different events with the fastest times winning awards and prize packages.

                For Richmond Rapids swimmers the event was a chance to test increased fitness, new skills learned and tactics that were just introduced.  The coaching staff was extremely pleased with some of the results. 

                For Head Coach Robert Pettifer it was an opportunity to see where the swimmers in his club were in terms of their training and their development. 

                “We as a staff looked at how swimmers performed the basics under duress as well as some of the new things we’ve worked on in practice.  The kids did great.  It will be interesting to see where they are in a couple of months after some hard work.”

                The 10 event decathlon consisted of four 50m events and four 100m events of each stroke as well as the 200 freestyle and the 200 IM.  Awards in each division are based off age and gender.

                Top 10 award winners for the Richmond Rapids were: Kyle Chan (11) 4^th, Ryan Murrey (11) 5^th, Richard Rachktis (11) 6^th, Austin Berry (11) 8^th, Kevin Ye (12) 3^rd, Arvin Chua (12) 4^th, Brandon Crawford (13) 4^th, Maximillian Schaffler (13) 6^th, Mike Zhang (13) 9^th, Cathy Ye (13) 6^th,  Michael Jakac-Sinclair (14) 4^th, Hau-Li Fan (14) 8^th, Brandon De Costa (15) 5^th, Nathan Muszynski (16) 7^th, Tiffany Orr (16) 4^th, Celine Hong (15) 9^th.

                Swimmers who broke club records were: Tiffany Orr (16), Nicolaas Dekker (15), Michael Jakac-Sinclair (14), Cathy Ye (14) who broke the 100 IM club records and Kevin Ye (12) who broke the club records in the 50, 100 breaststroke and 100 IM.

                The Rapids gear up for the Langley Invitational and Island Cup in Victoria.  The club also hosts their own major invitational swim meet on December 2-4th weekend.   Finals racing starts at 5pm at Watermania.  Clubs from across BC and Washington will be in attendance racing for some great prize money.