Richmond Swimmers Cracker at Xmas Cracker

December 12, 2011

                The Pacific Coast Swim Club has been running its annual Christmas Cracker swim meet for the past 10 years.  The meet was hosted at the Saanich Commonwealth Place and over 500 swimmers attended.  This Christmas themed swim meet offered more than the usual incentives to go fast; medals or ribbons, meet records and recognition.  It offered prizes.  Some of those prizes rivaled the items in Santa’s sleigh; underwater digital cameras, ipods, speaker docking systems and gift cards to all the best electronics stores.   There were prizes awarded for having a time that ended in specific digits, prizes for winning heats, and prizes for overall event winners.  The meet even went so far as to offer meet record breakers special prizes.

                Despite coming off a long swim meet last weekend the Richmond Rapids were geared up and ready to go.  The Rapids’ own locally hosted meet was a huge success and swimmers were excited to build upon the successes they had had the previous weekend.

                Twenty Rapids swimmers attended the meet and at the end plenty of prizes were won, podium finishes were had and some new swimmers were able to qualify some national level meets.

                Club records were set by Cathy Ye (13) in the 100 and 200 butterfly, Kevin Ye (12) 200 breaststroke, Michael Jakac-Sinclair (14) in  the 100 free, Hau-Li Fan (14) in the 1500 freestyle and by Brandon De Costa (15) in the 100, 400  and 800 freestyle.

                The new qualifier for the Canadian Western Championships was Paula Gosse (15) who achieved the standard in the 100 breaststroke. 

                Finalists (Top 16) for the Rapids were:
Arvin Chua (12) bronze 200 fly, 4^th 200 free.
Brandon De Costa (15) gold 100 free/50 back/100 back, bronze 800 free/50 fly, 4^th 400 IM/100 fly, 8^th 400 free.
Hau-Li Fan (14) gold 1500 free, silver 200 fly, 5^th 400 free/200 IM, 10^th 400 IM.
Paula Gosse (15) 10^th 100 breaststroke, 14^th 200 breast, 15^th 100 fly.
Michael Jakac-Sinclair (14) gold 50/100 fly, silver 50/100 free, 5^th 200 free, 8^th 400 free.
Patrick Kell (14) 8^th 100 breaststroke, 9^th 800 free.
Tiffany Orr (16) 7^th 50 fly, 9^th 100 breast/50 free, 10^th 50 back, 11^th 400 IM, 13^th 200 IM, 14^th 200 fly.
Serena Xue (13) gold 200 breast, silver 100 breaststroke.
Cathy Ye (14) silver 200 fly, bronze 100 fly.
Kevin Ye (12) gold 100 breast/100 free/100 fly/50 free/200 breaststroke.
Mike Zhang (13) 4^th 100/200 backstroke.
Kevin Zheng (15) 5^th 50 backstroke, 11^th 50/100 breast, 13^th 100 back, 14^th 200 breast, 15^th 100/200 fly.

                Throughout the course of the meet’s history the fastest times are recorded as meet records.  Michael Jakac-Sinclair set meet records in the 50 fly and 100 butterfly for 13-14 year old boys.

                The Rapids gear up for Christmas Holiday training Camp.  This is an opportunity for swimmers to increase mileage, and be able to recover without the stress of school.  Swimmers in the top groups will take 6 days off for Christmas after which they will be back in the pool hard at work.

                For Rapids Head Coach, Robert Pettifer, Christmas training camp is a time for swimmers to experience extra loading of intensity and volume while still being able to recover properly. 

                “I’m looking forward to training camp as it will expose the swimmers to newer, tougher challenges over the two weeks.  It should be exciting to see how they perform at the end of camp and going into their championship meets.”

                While more senior swimmers get this opportunity, younger swimmers in the Rapids Swim School, out of M inoru Pool will be taking a break and getting ready for the start of their second session on January 3rd.  Rapids Swim School is for swimmers 10 & under who are interested in the fundamentals of competitive swimming.  Registration for this program is on January 30^th from 5:30-6:30pm.  For more information click on www.richmondrapids.com or call 604-275-7946.