News
At day one of the 2012 NESCAC Championships, Jenny Hu (OA '10) broke the Tufts University 50 breast record which has stood for five years. Jenny swam a 29.83 earned 2nd place at the Championship meet. In the 200 MR, Jenny's breast split was a 29.72.
On Saturday, February 11th at 10:00, Dr. Elizabeth LaScala of Doing College will give a short presentation (30-45minutes) to high school Junior’s and parents (others are welcome to attend). This will be a general overview or jumpstart which will cover things that kids and parents should be thinking about now as well as a general timeline. We are very fortunate to have Elizabeth lend her expertise as a partner of Orinda Aquatics. Also, Margot Woodward, who has developed our College Planning Section on the website, will hand out a Getting...
Donnie addresses the ASCA conference in San Diego on "Life Skills and Character Development". As a followup to that presentation, John Leonard (ASCA) wrote the following email to the ASCA Board: Preface: Ronnie and I wanted to share an email that we received from the Executive Director of The American Swimming Coaches Association, John Leonard. Last fall, we were asked by John to give a seminar on “Life Skills and Character Development” for ASCA. That seminar was last Sunday in San Diego. I made the presentation as Ronnie was in...
After narrowly missing the Olympic Trials cut at Junior Nationals last summer, OA 17-year old Sven Campbell, qualifies for the trials in the 100 meter free posting a 51.41 at the Austin Grand Prix. Swimming with the likes of Nathan Adrian, Ryan Lochte, Michael Phelps and Cullen Jones, Sven finished 26th overall (2nd alternate). After that strong performance, Sven went on to earn his second Olympic Trials cut in the 200 back swimming a 2:04.30 in preliminaries (15th place in the finals). He finished 20th in the 100 back (57.77...
Thanksgiving Message from the Coaches We would like wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving and share some thoughts with you. When we tell parents that we have swim practice on Thanksgiving morning, most people’s response is the same, “you make people train on Thanksgiving”, or “why would anyone want to practice on Thanksgiving? Or, “you have to “work” on Thanksgiving?” To the contrary, it is one of the most positive and inspiring workouts of the year. After a team meeting with a few inspirational articles, and college swimmer introductions, we...
Orinda Aquatics Alums, Peter Varellas and Kim Vandenberg, represented the United States at the recent Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico. Kim, already a Bronze medalist at the 2008 Olympic games, won gold in the 200 meters butterfly for the US. Peter, a member of the the US men's silver medal team at the 2008 Olympics, represented US again as they won gold at the Pan American games with at 7-3 victory over Canada. The win locks up a spot for the US team at the 2012 games in London....
OA Swimmers had quite a showing at this year's Tiburon Mile! After training at Aquatic Park on Saturday, they hit the water in near perfect SF Bay conditions! Sven Campbell came in 2nd overall in the wetsuit division. In the "skin" division, Age Group results were very solid with Megan Howard (5th), Meghan Bicomong (6th), Megan Fuqua (18th), Alexa Hanley (20th), Christine Lum (22nd), Jenna Haufler (26th) and Sam Swinton (27th) representing OA girls. On the boys side, Talbot Jacobs (4th), Albert Miao (7th), Cameron Hoyh (10th) and Mitchell Carlson...
Ronnie and Donnie served as guest speakers addressing the audience on "Character First". See the Power Point by clicking on ASCA Talk on the homepage button. Two email comments following the talk: Don and Ron, thank you so much for a great presentation at asca. What a fantastic job! That was one the best talks of the entire clinic and the subject matter was so perfect for the swimming/youth sports world we live in nowadays. Thanks for being stand up guys. Now I know why you two have become so...
See her path - below! This is truly an inspirational story! From her blog... "I wish I could express the depth of my feelings regarding all of the emails and Facebook postings and tweets I received during and after my swim. I had over 400 emails and every one was encouraging and joyful and helpful and supportive. I especially loved the photos posted of the bead bracelets on face book. The number of people staying up late into the night watching my dot crawl across the channel was unbelievable. And...
