TVA swims 36 Finals @ Junior Olympics Championships
2012 Spring Junior Olympics Results
A MAJOR congratulations is due to our 17 swimmers of 2012 Spring Junior Olympics Championships team! Raza Aziz, Nate Borchers, Maria Carlson, Stephanie Doi, Crystal Fisher, Amber Fornoles, Thomas Gjerde, Courtney Lau, Jason Lau, Tyler Lu, Jordan Reznick, Devin Shepodd, Kyle Shepodd, Claire Suen, Natalie Tang, Caleb Wagner, and Julian Wagner all brought their best game to one of TVA’s biggest JOs ever! With 36 total finals (including the top-16 finishers in distance events) and a whole ton of best times, our JO swimmers certainly represented the team well.
The Silver Group swimmers kicked it into high gear right from the start of the meet: on Friday, Raza Aziz, Tyler Lu, and Claire Suen all swam best times in their races, Claire taking 4th in the 200 Free. The older groups were just as well-represented: Nate Borchers dropped an insane amount of time in the 500 Free to take 5th, while Devin Shepodd took 3rd in both the 500 Free and 400 IM. Kyle Shepodd and Julian Wagner went 6th and 7th in the 400 IM (for their age groups), and Natalie Tang took 8th in the 500 Free.
The momentum continued the rest of the weekend with amazing swims all around! Maria Carlson and Thomas Gjerde took home some first-place medals for the 200 Free and 200 Fly, respectively (Thomas dropped EIGHT seconds in his race to take the gold!). Other finals came from Maria (50, 100 Free), Stephanie Doi (200 Fly), Thomas (100 Fly), Jason Lau (100, 200 Fly), Tyler Lu (50, 100 Free; 50, 100 Fly), Devin Shepodd (200 Free, 200 IM), Kyle Shepodd (100, 200 Breast), Claire Suen (50, 100 Free; 50, 100 Back; 100 IM), Natalie Tang (200, 1000 Free; 100, 200 Back), Caleb Wagner (100 Breast), and Julian Wagner (100, 200 Back; 200 Breast; 1650 Free).
Even with the cold, rainy weather, the team was able to pull out some great swims! I do think several swimmers deserve a little extra recognition for toughing it through the weekend: Tyler, who hit his face on the bottom of the pool off of the start of his very first race and still swam all of his best times. Stephanie and Devin who had a pretty major collision at practice just a few days before the meet and were still able to pull through the weekend.
All in all, I just have to say that our JO swimmers did a GREAT job this weekend. For the swimmers whose last meet was JOs, it was definitely a wonderful way to end the season; for the swimmers who still have Far Westerns before the season is done, it was a great stepping-stone toward an even bigger meet. Congratulations again to all of our JO swimmers!
Natalie Tang
Team Captain
