SWAMIs Shine at Sunset, Sunrise Meets
SWAMIs Shine at Sunset, Sunrise Meets
ROSE PARK -- The west side's prized and now notorious outreach swim program, Race Swami, hosted its first United States Swimming meet this past weekend in what has turned out to be another great achievement for a modest program that was founded only in January of 2011.
The two meets, held back to back on Friday evening (Oct 25th) and Saturday morning (Oct 26th), were held at Rose Park's Northwest Recreation facility and featured a number of USA swim clubs from throughout northern Utah. The meets garnered more than 250 swimmers over the two days. Friday night's appropriately dubbed, "SWAMI SUNSET CLASSIC in Rose Park" kicked the festivities off for SWAMI under blue skies that quickly gave way to an epic sunset worthy of the meet's name. That meet was immediately followed up the next morning with the "SWAMI SUNRISE CLASSIC," a developmental-level swim meet geared towards the younger, inexperienced athletes of USA Swimming.
In addition to the Race Swami club, the Sunset Classic featured three visiting teams--Park City Swimming, Cottonwood Heights Aquatic Team, and the south valley's Devil Ray Aquatic Team, based in Herriman. All are considered some of the best age group programs Utah Swimming has to offer.
Saturday morning's Sunrise Classic offered a new field of teams, aside from Race Swami and Devil Ray who both sent more than 30 swimmers each. The meet drew teams from Heber City, Lehi, Ogden, Logan, and Tooele. Though it was technically a smaller venue than the previous night's event, the Sunrise Classic focused mainly on athletes who are in the beginning phases of their competitive swimming careers. The meet featured close to 120 swimmers in events ranging from 50 yard races of all strokes, to a couple 200 yard events.
Each meet turned out to be a little over two hours, considerably shorter--and quite favorable to swimming fans who are generally conditioned towards withstanding 5 hour plus meets on most occasions.
According to SWAMI team president Leslie Motley, the organization was thrilled with the outcome, size, and length of both meets. "Seeing as how this was our first hosted meet for Race Swami, we couldn't have been happier with the fact that both meets were manageable in size and not too long," Motley said. "Our program still made a little money from the meets and can be applied to some immediate needs—like continued scholarships for at-risk youth who are members of the team. But what was most evident was how our Swami community rallied for the occasion and came up big in helping pull this off—and pulling it off really well."
The nonprofit organization itself featured close to 50 swimmers over the course of the two days of competition, with ages ranging from 6 to 15. Virtually every swimmer adorned in Swami's signature green and gold turned in lifetime best times in the events they raced.
Not to be outdone, the SWAMI MAMIS, a boisterous fan base of Swamis, is fast becoming a fixture in a community that had no USA Swimming-sanctioned clubs prior to 2011. The SWAMI MAMIs made it's presence known from the beginning as they cheered loudly at the far end of the pool for every swimmer clad in the green and gold. It was as close to "home pool advantage" as they come in this sport. It seemed fitting, given the fact this was a first for the Rose Park community as well—no west side neighborhood had ever hosted a USA swim meet until Friday night.
Judging by how smoothly these meets ran, this will likely be the first of many for Race Swami and Rose Park.
Jon D. Mecklenburg, Rose Park Herald-Courier, reporting.
