Sport Team & Seniors Test Out New Meet Format

For the 2024-25 Short Course Swim Season, USA Swimming created a Pilot Program called Block Party Swim Meets. Wave Aquatics was selected to be a member of the program. This is an exciting way to make hosting meets for novice athletes easier and promote more competitions for athletes. We are excited to be able to host these meets and experiment throughout the year with different formats and different structures for the athletes. This first attempt probably felt familiar to typical meets as we get our feet underneath ourselves with the new swim year. But we are excited for the opportunities this program allows us to explore.

The first weekend featured swimmers from our Sport Team while the second weekend included all three senior groups (High School, Senior 1, Senior Epic) squaring off with swimmers from West. In both meets, our swimmers stepped up and raced very well and we had some big time drops to go along!

White Group

White Group had a fantastic meet this weekend! At this meet, we focused on swimming events that were a bit more difficult or intimidating and we saw awesome results from everyone! White Group had 10 swimmers swim the 200 Free for the first time as well as 8 out of 10 swimmers legally swimming a 200 IM time. Fun Fact: all 10 swimmers who swam 200 IM for the first time got a B-time in the event! Speaking of motivational times, the group added seven first-time B swimmers and three first-time BB swimmers!!

• Noah Chen had a fantastic meet. On Saturday, he raced hard and dropped 13 seconds in his 100 Fly and 7 seconds in his 100 Back. Then on Sunday, he raced even harder, swimming his first 200 Free with a time of 3:32.36 and gaining his first B-time in the 50 Back!
• Braxton David has taken the steps to completely focus on swimming as his number one sport and it shows! He’s a speed-demon in his free, back, and fly, and proved he can also be a speed-demon in his breaststroke! He went from no B-times in any of the breaststroke events to gaining a B-time in both the 50 and 100 Breast! Not only that, but it was also his first time legally swimming the 100! He also gained his first two BB-times. One was an impressive 10-second drop in his 50 Back and an even more impressive BB-time in his first-ever 200 IM!
• Jason Gao has been improving at more rapid speeds than I originally thought possible! On Saturday, he dropped more than 26 seconds combined in his 100 Free and 100 Breast, gaining a B-time in his 100 Free! On Sunday, he swam the 200 Free for the first time, landing exactly 3 seconds away from the B-time. He’s also inching closer to his first BB-time in the 50 Back and is only 0.75 away!
• Kaiji Homma Has been working really hard on fixing his breaststroke kick and he did it! He now has his first legal 50 Breast time! He also dropped an impressive 6 seconds in his 100 Free!
• Bessie Jiang had two difficult events and did an amazing job in both! She swam the 100 Fly and 200 Free very well, gaining very impressive first times! She also dropped a whopping 15 seconds in her 100 Free.
• Gihoo Kim dropped the most total time in all his events out of anybody in the meet and I don’t think it was even close, including a whopping 45.30 seconds in the 100 Free. He also dropped more than 21 seconds in his 100 IM and 3 seconds in his 50 free. In Total, he dropped 70.52 seconds in the three events!
• Melanie King has also started taking steps to make swimming her first sport and we saw massive improvements from her. She scored a new motivational time in three events while only being 1.7 seconds away from the 4^th event. What’s really impressive is one of her motivational times was a B-time in the 200 IM! She also scored a B-time in the 100 Free by dropping more than 3 seconds. Her last motivational time was a BB-time in the 50 Back, giving her a second BB-time!
• Otis Lloyd was so blurry fast in this meet that I had to look at my heat sheet to know who was swimming! He blasted off the block in his 50 Free so quickly that he scored his first BB-time dropping 2.74 seconds. He also managed to drop an impressive 12 seconds in his 50 Fly and scored another B-time in his 200 IM!
• Gemma Moore has been doing an amazing job in practice. She dropped massive amounts of time in all four events, gaining her first B-times in three of them! She dropped 11.28 seconds in her 50 Breast, 6.58 seconds in her 50 Fly and 11.45 seconds in her 100 IM. Her biggest drop was her 100 Free, dropping a whopping 22.23 seconds for a total of 51.54 seconds!
• Bianca Stanciu came to this meet and let nothing stop her from crushing each and every event she swam. She got a new motivational time in every event, yet even more impressive was three of those motivational times were BB-times! She went from no times in her 100 Back and 100 Breast to BB-times in both events! She dropped a whopping 11.32 seconds in her 50 Back to gain that BB-time. The only event she got a B-time in was the 200 Free and even still her time landed halfway between the B and BB time!
• Zoey Stark the swimmer who breathes through her nose while she swims even in her backstroke absolutely crushed this meet. She swam the 50 Fly dropping an impressive 19.96 seconds. She swam the 200 IM for the first time and of course scored a B-time! Her most impressive swim was in her 100 Back where she not only dropped 18.13 seconds to gain her second BB-time, but now she only needs to drop 7 seconds to gain an A-time and only 8 seconds to qualify for the PNS Champs meet in December!
• Claire Zhang is a new swimmer to White Group and has shown so much potential. She did an amazing job in her 100 IM, dropping 6.46 seconds and 2.71 seconds in her 50 free, which gave her a third silver time to race at the November AGI meet. She also scored a legal 50 Fly for the first time!

Purple Group

A group

• Joseph Foster had the best 500 Free of the meet, and it also was his first one ever! He was moved to a different heat at the last second and not only adapted well but demolished his competition by swimming smart and strong. This earned him a new B time and got him 1 second away from a BB time. I can’t wait to see his next 500!
• Ross Gawthrop crushed his heat in his 50 Free earning his first BB time! He also raced two events he previously had NT in and dropped time in his 100 Fly! Great job, Ross!!
• Anishi Singh had one of the most successful meets of Purple group, earning three new B times! This included 100 Back, 100 Free, and 50 Free. She finished her meet strong with her first ever 500 Free.
• Alizeh Kurji had a great comeback after some disappointments on Saturday. Her Sunday results made up and showed all the hard work she puts in at practice. She not only got the fastest 500 time for our girls but got a B time in both the 50 and 500 Free!
• Kyra Yuan had a triumphant meet dropping times in all her events, including dropping 13.18 seconds in her 200 IM. She shows great competitiveness and focus that always make her races fun to watch!

B group

• Shatadru Roy Choudhury dropped 5.85 seconds in his 100 Breast, getting him his second B time this season. At this meet he worked hard on keeping a positive mindset and was rewarded for it!
• Anika Arvin had a crazy time drop of 5.44 seconds in her 50 Free, putting her inches away from a B time. It’ll be exciting to see her attack her next 50 Free!
• Mikhail Lavrov swam three new events with no DQs and achieved two silver times, getting him to his first qualifying meet! He is one of our newest swimmers and shows up ready to work hard everyday.
• Thomas Godbout dropped more than 11 seconds at this meet while also swimming his first 200 Breast. He has a great work ethic and is always ready with questions and to learn more about the swimming world.
• Doyeol Yang also swam his first 200 Breast and dropped more than 20 seconds overall in his other events! He’s able to keep up with our older swimmers while being a new recruit to Purple, very impressive work, Doyeol!

High School

There were some great time drops at this meet. Some athletes had better attendance and effort in the practices leading up to the meet and it shows. Congrats to all the athletes who had unwavering attendance and effort and pushed through! So many athletes were so close to cuts they have as goals. Keep grinding, almost there!

• Miranda Range just finished her high school season with Woodinville at districts the day before and came in ready to race! She did great in her 100 Free, dropping -1.68 for a B time. She also dropped a cool -20.76 in her 500 Free and -2.95 in her 200 IM.
• Arnav Jha didn’t drop time in every event, but he sure did come close to it. He did drop -7.29 in his 100 Breast for a B time! He has been focused on fixing his mechanics and getting faster in practice. He’s been working hard on his breaststroke and it shows!
• Julien Wang is someone who never backs down from a challenge. He has really grown into specific strokes in the last year and has been grinding hard on getting fast in those. He dropped -4.20 in his 100 Fly for a B time.

Black Group

Our Black Group swimmers have been making steady progress and despite only having four practices between meets, many of them really took off in their second meet. Thank you as always to families for arriving on time and arriving prepared for the meet!

A quick congratulations to all our Black Group swimmers who earned first time USA Swimming Motivational B times:

• Quinn Braun — 100 Breast
• Finley Meier — 100 Back
• Raya Hari — 100 Back
• Aaradhya Bharadwaj — 50 Breast
• Raya Hari — 50 Back
• Finley Meier — 50 Fly
• Cora Sun — 50 Back
• Cora Sun — 50 Breast

Group A Saturday

• Quinn Braun swam two 100s on Saturday and in both races, she put in an excellent effort and showed how she’s worked to improve. In her 100 Breast, she made her first B time while her 100 Free was her best time by far.
• Arthur Dauletbaev completed two races for the first time on Saturday: the 100 Free and the 25 Fly. His butterfly has come a long way and getting that first legal swim in is a nice accomplishment!
• Lily Ellis swam the 100 Free for the first time and earned a trip to the November AGI meet in that race. Her 25 Fly was a 4-second improvement over her first swim, a very significant improvement!

Group B Saturday

• Eleanor Cheng completed the 25 Back and 25 Free for the first time, posting a very respectable first swim in her freestyle. She does a wonderful job at practices, and we are excited to see her continue to build on that.
• Mila Grannan swam her second meet with Wave and showed a whole lot of improvement from the four practices between meets! Great job Mila!
• Gavin Liu swam the 100 Free for the first time, going 2:05, which is a terrific first swim for a 7-year-old! He also improved slightly on his 25 Back using some strong kicking to get to that wall.

Group A Sunday

• Nyra Chhabra completed her first 50 Back and 50 Breast on Sunday and will only get better at those events from here as she is working and improving every day in practice.
• Amelia Horng has gotten noticeably better over the past few months, so it’s no accident as she does a terrific job at practice every time. The coaches were super proud of her swims and hyped that she earned her way onto the November AGI roster!
• James Lin had two really nice swims on Sunday in his 50 Back and 50 Free, including breaking the 1:00 mark for the first time in his 50 Free!

Group B Sunday

• Simaya Gupta had an excellent meet on Sunday, completing the 50 Back for the first time and doing it under 1:00, as well as a big drop in her 50 Free to also get well under 1:00 in that race. She has made some nice improvements in practice over the past few months that showed!
• Clara Huang has been doing an excellent job at practice and on Sunday she completed her first-ever 25 Breast, as well as dropping a huge chunk of time off her first 50 Free from two weeks ago!
• Jerry Zhang has been steadily growing in practices and on Sunday was able to complete his first 50 Free and 50 Back in the meet.

Senior Epic

Senior Epic stepped up and raced well at the meet after a very intense week of practice. The group swam through the meet again and we used it as an opportunity to work on physical and mental skills to get ready for our Champs Season. There were lots of fast, solid swims and some swimmers were able to go best times. We will continue to work on details to get stronger, faster, and better in the upcoming weeks. Enjoy some highlights from our group:

• Daniel Xia had an excellent meet where he was able to drop time in two events. He swam his first two events within 15 minutes and crushed both. In the 100 Free, he swam fast and tied his best time. Then a few minutes later he came back to swim one of his strongest events, the 100 Breast where he dropped 0.49 with a great back-end speed! Then he wrapped up the day dropping 2.53 seconds in the 100 Back, a stroke that he has been working and improving a lot lately.
• Adrian Juco has been crushing his freestyle aerobic sets this season and it showed in his 500 Free where he dropped almost 10 seconds and finished the race strong! He also had another two fast swims during the meet where he swam a bit more than a second off his times in both the 100 Breast, one of his specialties, and the 100 Back, another stroke that he has been focusing on at practice.
• Logan Downing has been training hard and got two new best times last weekend. He has been working on his freestyle technique and was able to put together a great 100 Free, dropping 3.39 seconds and looking good the entire race. He also updated his 100 Back time and went 10 seconds faster than his old time.

Senior 1

Senior 1 had 25 swimmers compete at the meet. The focus of the meet was racing when they are tired and doing a good job controlling the things they are able to control. Everyone raced three times in a short two-hour window. It was a great test of their mental toughness and they all did excellent stepping up each race and giving it their all.

• Kirill Kadach has been a real machine during our longer aerobic sets. His high-volume training paid off in a big way as he crushed the 500 Free. He did a great job going out strong but not over swimming the race early, staying strong through the middle, and finishing with great speed. For all his efforts, he turned in a huge 5-second drop going under 5:30 for the first time.
• Ani Purkayastha has been working to improve her short axis strokes as well as her endurance. Her meet performance indicated that her work is paying off in a big way. She swam a super strong 100 Fly dropping a half second and looking much better the last 25 than she has previously. She then topped off her day with a huge swim in the 500 dropping 5 seconds and breaking the 6:00 barrier.
• Vien Pogue came to the meet off a two-day high school post season meet. She didn’t let being tired stop her from attacking all her races and putting forth her best effort. She started the day off with a very fast 100 Free dropping almost a half second and just missed going under the 1:00 mark for the first time. She is eager to swim the race again and go 59! She capped her day with a strong 200 IM swimming well through the middle and closing well earning herself a new best time in the event.

New US Motivational Times

 AA 

• Bennett Geitz – 100 Free
• Daniel Xia – 100 Back

 A 

• Daniel Chen – 500 Free
• Logan Downing – 100 Free
• Kirill Kadach – 500 Free
• Anton Mazepa – 100 Free

 BB 

• Quinn Anderson – 100 Back, 100 Breast
• Alex Belkin – 100 Free
• Lucas Blat-Phillips – 50 Free
• Alvin Chang – 100 Free
• Braxton Davis – 200 IM, 50 Back
• Ross Gawthrop – 50 Free
• Melanie King – 50 Back
• Lydia Liu – 100 Free, 200 Breast
• Elizabeth Luo – 50 Free
• Asmi Sarkar – 100 Breast, 50 Back
• Jiesse Shi – 100 Free
• Bianca Stansiu – 100 Back, 100 Breast, 50 Back
• Zoey Stark – 100 Back
• Gabe Traina – 100 Fly

 B 

• Kanav Acharya – 50 Breast
• Victoria Arena – 50 Free, 100 Breast
• Aaradhya Bharadwaj – 50 Breast
• Tanay Boda – 100 Breast
• Alexander Bouianov – 100 IM
• Quinn Braun – 100 Breast
• Sebastian Chan – 100 Back
• Alvin Chang – 200 IM
• Katelyn Chen – 50 Back, 50 Fly
• Yunqi Chen – 100 Fly
• Ian Chow – 100 Free
• Braxton Davis – 50 & 100 Breast
• Logan Downing – 100 Back
• Ziad El Gamal – 100 Fly
• Joseph Foster – 50 Free, 100 Breast
• Jason Gao – 100 Free
• Avni Garg – 100 Breast
• Raya Hari – 50 & 100 Back
• Penelope Hepkin – 100 Back
• Arnav Jha – 100 Breast
• Ira Joshi – 50 Fly
• Alina Karptsova – 200 Breast
• Melanie King – 200 IM
• Atharva Koppal – 50 Breast
• Alizeh Kurji – 50 & 500 Free
• Dmitry Leonov-Vendrovskiy – 200 Breast
• David Li – 50 & 100 Free, 200 IM
• Otis Lloyd – 200 IM
• Adrian Lopez de Castilla – 50 Breast
• Elizabeth Luo – 500 Free
• Jonah Lynn – 50 Free
• Ostap Lytvynovskyi – 200 IM
• Finley Meier – 50 Fly, 100 Back
• Mia Mohr – 50 Breast, 100 Back
• Gemma Moore – 50 Breast, 50 Fly, 100 IM
• Theresa Nguyen – 100 Fly
• Shatadru Roy Choudhury – 100 Breast
• Asmi Sarkar – 200 IM
• Anishi Singh – 50 Breast, 100 Back, 100 Free
• Rachel Siu – 50 Free, 200 IM
• Bianca Stanciu – 200 Free
• Zoey Stark – 200 IM
• Cora Sun – 50 Back, 50 Breast
• Carlo Villanueva – 500 Free, 200 IM
• Julien Wang – 100 Fly
• Isaac Xie – 50 Breast

WAVE ON 3!!