Lions host internal Junior SEASAC Swim Meet

Lions Swim Academy hosted their very own Virtual Junior SEASAC over the 8^th – 9^th May at Stamford American’s Lincoln pool.

Restrictions this year have made organizing competitions an onerous and arduous task. Much planning has gone in, made all the tougher by the recent announcements by the Singapore Government curbing mass participation events. The Aquatics staff submitted plans weeks in advance and it was only at 6:45pm on the day before that the team heard their event could go ahead!

A bit of clever planning meant that all the groups could be separated. The teams were split into ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ teams in a dual meet format. For this meet, the Blue team was made up of scoring swimmers for SEASAC. The Academy had to nominate 20 swimmers, girls & boys across two age ranges 12yrs & under and 13-14yrs. The results will be combined with results from other schools around South East Asia with the Top 10 results scoring points for their team.

Saturday got under way and the mood seemed a little flat. The atmosphere seemed alien to many of the student-athletes despite participating in the test event 2 weeks previous. There were a few missed changeovers, finishes and the focus seemed to be missing. Was it something in the air? Very clearly so. As the 400m races began, a storm loomed on the horizon. Carefully tracking the electrical activity, the coaching team decided to put the event on hold just as the lightening alarm was activated. Having waited for nearly an hour in hope of resuming, a call was made to cancel Saturday’s events.

Sunday was different. Everyone meant business. Yesterday was not going to satisfy the hunger for some results.

The 4 x 100 Medley relays were completed. The 200m backstroke, 50m freestyle and 100m Breaststroke events formed the morning session. Again, another storm loomed. Warm-up was reduced to speed up the event before the weather changed. The 200m freestyle, 50m backstroke, 100m butterfly, and 4 x 50 freestyle relays all followed in swift sucession.

There were some great swims throughout the day. Six school records were broken! Katie broke the 200 backstroke & 50m freestyle records to add to the current records she already owns. Emma was within 1 second of breaking the 200m backstroke record but was successful in breaking the 100m butterfly record. Not to be outdone, sister Cristina smashed the 200m freestyle and 50m freestyle school records. A new debutant on the record board was Saki, who broke the 100m butterfly record. Of worthy mention were Seth & Lang who continue their battle across the age groups. Both boys were under a second away from setting new records in their respective age groups.

In the wider team, there were 74 personal bests across 95 swims including 6 DQs, a PB rate of 77.89%.

Thanks must be extended to our officials and volunteers who helped on the day, to Camp Asia who assisted with Safe Management, the IT and AV Departments at school who helped set up sounds and networks and of course our Maintenance department who helped us with setup and take down.