Katie lights up her lane at Singapore Junior Invitational Meet

The Singapore Swimming Association hosted the Junior Invitational Meet over 3 days, from 13^th -15^th March at OCBC Aquatic Centre in Kallang. The purpose of the meet was to provide opportunity for the top 48 youngsters to compete against each other with adequate safe management in place.

Swimmers aged 12yrs and younger were invited based on their overall ranking from the past few months. We were lucky enough to have to swimmers make the cut including Katie and Courtney. Sadly, a last minute injury to Courtney meant she was unable to take part. It was going to left down to Katie to represent the Stamford Lions Swim Academy!

“Katie was admittedly a little nervous, she had hoped she would be racing with her training partner Courtney. She quickly put it behind her demonstrating one of our athletic ‘ROAR’ values, resilience.” said Coach Grace. “It was so exciting to see her race we were probably even more nervous!”

The 200m freestyle was her first chance. She knocked 4.5 seconds off her personal best set just a month previous to finish 13^th. Her 50m backstroke was strong and she placed 6^th with a new PB of 36.28, a 1.67 second improvement. She stepped up again in the 100m backstroke, finishing 7^th with another 4 second PB in 1:18.98. Her confidence was growing.

The 50m freestyle is known for favouring bigger athletes. Not being the tallest did not deter her, she swam a strong 50m freestyle to place 20^th with yet another PB. The 100m freestyle is often the hottest contested event at many meets competitions, everyone trains on freestyle. Katie finished a credible 18^th with a 1:10.93 and finished in 18^th slot with a 1.61 PB.

Lastly was her favourite event, the 200m backstroke. Having learnt from pacing issues earlier on in the meet, her splits were fantastic. She smashed her previous best by 10.68 secs and secured a 5^th place finish I Singapore, her best yet.

Katie was supported throughout the meet by Coach Grace Vertigans and Aquatics Director Paul Dowey. Katie is currently a member of the Middle School Performance Squad. “Katie has no doubt benefitted from the underlying work with Coach Grace and Coach Vanessa during a restrictive training period.” said Coach Paul. “It is great that we have been able to take training to the next level ahead of this type of meet.” The Performance Squad currently has 6 sessions on offer to them and coached by Paul himself.

If you wish to join our Swim Academy we have sessions available to you! Whether it be from a learn to swim level or a performance standard, get in touch with us [email protected]