Today was the first day of competition at the 2009 Summer
Junior
Olympics. It was a great day of competition for our
swimmers as we had 11 best times out of 12 swims. We also had
many people earn a second swim by making either the championship
final, or the consolation final for their respective events.
In finals, we had almost all improvements from the early morning
swims and either held our place or moved up in all our
events.
There were many notable performances, but special
congratulations to Jessie Ball for achieving a Sectionals time
standard in the 100 Free, and Nick Vargas, for achieving a
Sectionals time standard in the 800 Free. Nick was only .20
away from being the JO Champion in this event, earning a second
place finish.
- Haley Slade started off the day with an improved time of
2:40.80 in the 200 Backstroke. She ended up as the
first alternate, almost earning a second swim in the consolation
final.
- Austin Takeda made the consolation final in the 200 Backstroke
with a substantial drop, missing a spot in the championship final
by .01. Good news is that he improved again at night and held
his 9th place over all with a time of 2:28.94, winning
the consolation final. Austin again narrowly missed a spot in
the championship final by .03 in the 100 Freestyle with a time of
59.45. With another great effort in finals, Austin was again
able to win the consolation final in the 100 free for another
9th place over all finish.
- Nick Vargas had a nice drop in his 200 backstroke, but narrowly
missed making the consolation final with a time of 2:32.92 and was
the second alternate. Rebounding with a great swim, Nick
finished second over all in the championship final in the 800
freestyle, narrowly missing first place by only .20 of a second.
Good news is that Nick qualified for Sectionals!
- Jeff Yoshida earned a 20th place finish in the 800 free,
dropping another 4 seconds to a 9:41.64.
- Chris Waechter had a beautiful 200 Backstroke earning an
11th place finish with a time of 2:21.51 and missing
Sectionals time standard by only 2 seconds. Chris took off a
lot of time from his entry time, then another 3 seconds in finals.
Chris also swam the 100 freestyle with a time of 57.7.
- Chesna Biolley dropped three seconds in her 200 butterfly to
enter the finals at 6th place, then took off another
half second and moved up to a 5th place finish in the
championship final. Chesna was just over two seconds away
from qualifying for the Sectionals Time Standard.
- Jessie Ball also made the Championship
final in the 100 Freestyle, going in at 6th place, and
moving up to 5th place in finals. She improved her
time to a 1:01.07, well below a Sectionals time standard.
- Delani Clark improved her time in the 100 Free from a 1:08.70
to a 1:08.40.
- Niles Biolley improved his time in the 100 Free from a 1:09.83
to a 1:08.76.
I couldn’t ask for better performances from our
swimmers. Their hard work and dedication is being rewarded
and they are having a great time. We all expect to continue
our winning ways tomorrow as the 10&under age group begins
their events and our older kids continue to try to reach that
Sectionals mile stone.
Hope you enjoy the updates.
