USA SWIMMING ZONES AND FUTURES CHAMPIONSHIPS

USA SWIMMING ZONES AND FUTURES CHAMPIONSHIPS

By Emilie Cooper

What do Cary, North Carolina and San Antonio, Texas have in common? They are the locations where four of Oak Ridge’s finest swimmers and members of Atomic City Aquatic Club (ACAC) were demonstrating their ATOMIC power and attitudes swimming in the USA Swimming ZONES and FUTURES Championships July 26-29!

Emmy Zimmer & Dorian Volcansek

ZONES:  After their outstanding performance at the Southeastern Swimming Championship, Emmy Zimmer (12) and Dorian Volcansek (12) were both selected for the 11-12 year-old team of 24 swimmers representing the Southeastern LSC including Florida panhandle, Alabama, and Tennessee. The Zone team “serves as a valuable learning experience about valuing the team result over the individual result. This experience is something that becomes more prevalent as swimmers advance to higher levels of this sport - NCAA, world champs, Olympic teams etc, all of these meets are centralized behind the team's success,” said SES Zones Coach Jess Abrahamson.

For Emmy Zimmer, her 100M backstroke became a highlight.  As a Saturday race, she had already swum hard for multiple days and was showing signs of fatigue. In her preliminary race, she squeaked into 8th place to earn a spot in the A Finals. Her confidence was lagging, though.  She came to Coach Jess with self-doubt and not feeling well. “I told her… she had done all the training necessary to blow this thing out of the water. The importance of turning off negative thoughts at big meets and relying on the automation of fast swimming (created by our training) is the only thing she needed to do,” - Coach Abrahamson.

Emmy was seeded in the finals to an outside lane, a position traditionally seeded to the slower swimmers in the race, not expected to win. “Outside smoke” is a term used to describe swimmers in these lanes who come in for a surprise victory. Emmy was outside smoke!  She swam an ATOMIC personal best time, dropping more than 2 seconds and dominating the race with a 1st place finish! 

Dorian, too, pulled things together for an epic conclusion on the meet.  With multiple strong races throughout the meet, his energy was waning. “We [had] great discussions about trusting the process…What we can control is remembering all the things our coaches have told us to do and swim fast with the best technique we can muster, ignore our feelings of tiredness and prepare for races like the pros do— with nutrition and rest,” - Coach Abrahamson.  

On the last evening of the meet, Dorian had qualified in preliminaries in the 7th position for the 50M Fly.  Finals were intense!  He tied for 1st with a time of 28.49s, a new personal best.  “The celebration was epic,” - Coach Abrahamson.

Dorian and Emmy also helped their relay teams earn podium finishes.  Dorian’s 200M Free Relay and Emmy’s Mixed 200M Medley Relay both took 1st. Dorian additionally placed 6th in the 50M Back and set best times in the 50M Back, 100M Fly, 100M Back, and 100M Free.  Emmy additionally placed 1st in the 50M Back and set personal bests in the 50M Back, 50M Free, 100M Free, and 200M Individual Medley. The Southeastern Zone team placed 3rd overall.

As of the time of this writing, Dorian is ranked 10th in the nation for his age group in the 50M Fly.  Emmy is nationally ranked in the top 25 for both her 50M and 100M Back.  

Leo Karnitz, Coach Chris Franklin, & Andrew Chou

FUTURES:  The USA Swimming Futures Championship is designed as an intermediate step between Sectional Championships and Junior National or National Championships. Andrew Chou (16) and Leo Karnitz (17) both achieved the fast and difficult qualifying times to attend this meet and earned a chance to swim against athletes that they do not normally race against in the Southeast.  It also gave them “opportunities to perform in front of college coaches and those opportunities did not go unnoticed by those coaches,” - ACAC Coach Chris Franklin.

Leo Karnitz put his hard work and training techniques together into multiple best times.  Starting the meet with the 200 Fly, “his stroke was exactly what we were looking for on the 1st 100 and he battled back for a best time on the last 50.  Great and productive swim for the beginning of a meet,” - Coach Franklin. 

Later in the week, Leo’s 100M Fly was another great race. “Leo was exactly where he needed to be on the 1st 50.  Fought hard on the last 15 meters and put together his best time ever.  Just off making finals, but a really great swim!” - Coach Franklin.  With additional high praise for Leo’s 100M Back and 100M Free, Coach Franklin finished by saying he was “really happy with Leo’s overall performance throughout the week.”

Andrew Chou also showed off his hard work and training across his 6 events.  After working on timing aspects of his breaststroke, “this was his best performance to date while putting these changes into his racing.”  Both his individual medley races (400M and 200M) were strong performances that qualified for finals. The decision was made to scratch from finals in these races, however, to allow Andrew to focus on his backstroke.  

With Andrew’s backstroke, they had been training on some changes to his opening speed and hip stabilization.  Both of his 100M races were best times, taking a second off his time with a strong second half of the race.  For his 200M race, “his opening speed improved again and his hips were extremely stable for the first 150… He finished the race really well, even if he wasn’t happy with the execution of the actual ‘finish’ of the race,” - Coach Franklin.  Andrew placed 5th in his 100M Back and 6th in the 200M Back.

Andrew has qualified for the 2023 Junior National Championship with his 100M and 200M Backstroke.  Additionally, Andrew is currently ranked 13th nationally for his 100M Back.

For athletes and coaches alike, these championship meets can be intense and rewarding.  Coach Franklin commented, “I am forever grateful to the athletes and team I represent, for the opportunity to coach at this meet, and to learn from the great professional coaches and officials at this event.”

Atomic City Aquatic Club is on a break now to rest and recover.  They will begin practice for the new short course season at the Oak Ridge Civic Center on Monday, August 21st.