An amazing job by our team racing at our own Hollyburn Invitational this past weekend! There was a really exciting atmosphere with swimmers from five teams on deck, it was our biggest meet since November 2019! Thanks to all the parents who helped out throughout the weekend, we really ran a great swim meet. Highlights for each group are below.

Swim Academy 1 & 2
The coaching staff was so impressed with how our swimmers did this weekend. First of all, we really enjoyed seeing positive attitude from all the swimmers on deck. We saw lots of body position improvement for freestyle and backstroke since October and we are getting stronger with our legs. Backstroke starts and freestyle dives also showed a lot of progress. For many swimmers it was their first time racing breaststroke and butterfly. They all did very well since we have just introduced these two strokes in the last two weeks. Congratulations to Ryan A, Chelsea D, Chloe, Esme, Olivia F, Tiam, Freya, Rhett, Chelsea L, Ella, Kyle, London, Nicolas, Ethan, Hannah, Amelia, Olivia W, who all raced events for the first time! And even more congratulations to Gracie, Ashton, James, Marlowe, Nikki, Leonardo and Mason who competed in their first swim meet!
Coming soon in practice…introduction to turns! Make sure to come to practice to learn all the new skills and continue your progression. New Swim Academy swimmers should at least attend two swim practice a week while older and returning swimmers should aim for three practices each week!

Monsoon
Wow is the only word that came to mind when I think about the Monsoon swimmer results. Ashley, Pippa and Bianca were in fine racing mood, they destroyed all of their times from last year! This included Ashley improved her 200m IM by 43sec, Pippa took off 26 seconds as they both went way under 4:00 to qualify for Lower Mainland Regional Meets! Bianca was an incredible 17 seconds faster in her 100m IM! Same great racing from Harris, Beau and Madelyn who were all best times and lots of stroke improvement. Ivana who is new the club and consistent with her training raced very well winning a few heats and applying all her new skills.  
With five swim practices available Monsoon swimmers should try to attend a minimum of three practices a week to expect any improvement and be able to follow the group progression.  You can really see a difference with developing better skills and fitness with athletes that attend four to five times a week.

Tsunami
The swimmers who raced at the Langley Meet two weeks ago and then again this weekend were really impressive with their improvements. Phillipa had a huge breakthrough meet where she made huge drops across all of her events. Phillipa raced to two team records in the 50m Freestyle and 50m Backstroke while also doing a much better job of holding her speed in her 100m and 200m events! Lily was also consistently fast with all best times, her breaststroke was long arms with strong kicks and she showed a lot of speed out of her dives in other strokes! Cameron raced both of his Individual Medley events very well, racing into his turns and pushing off with great underwater kicks! Calais’s 200m Individual Medley was a big improvement on last year with tremendous racing in her butterfly and backstroke, she came so close to breaking four minutes! Vincent used his strokerate and a big effort to take off ten seconds in his 100m Freestyle! Emma broke 40 seconds twice in the 50m Freestyle for the first time, improving her breakout speed! Evelyn’s stroke looked great in her events with big best times in her 100m Freestyle and 100m Breaststroke! Kareena has improved so much since her last official races! Kareena was really solid throughout her 200m events and showed a lot of speed in all four of her 50m races! Natalie had great speed in her 50m Freestyle and 50m Backstroke! Lucas continues to improve his times in all events! Mia had a very speedy 50m Backstroke and loves taking off time in the 100m Butterfly!

Typhoon
Stella was strong throughout racing to new SwimBC Divisional time standards, breaking 1:20 in 100m Backstroke and 1:30 in the 100m Breaststroke for the first time! Saige raced really well, accelerating into her turns with a great best in the 50m Butterfly! After some time out of the water, Marcus looked very good with best times in his 50m freestyle and butterfly events!

Pursuit
Overall the Pursuit swimmers have started to show more speed, hit a few best times and continue their set up to swim at their best through December. As swimmers get older it gets harder to always go their best when those times are generally swum at their top meets each season when they have more training under their belt. It’s important to hit racing speed as much as possible leading up to these performance and they did a great job building through the season. Henry raced really well accelerating into his finishes to out touch his competition in each of his races! Tristan split his races very well and tied his best in the 100m Freestyle! Rafael put together a terrific 100m Breaststroke, holding the water early and accelerating through the second half.  It is always a joy to have Tyler with the team as he bettered his 50m Butterfly best!

A few more swim meet notes…
Please write your swimmers name on shirts and inside bathing suits. There has been a lot of team gear left behind and it is so much easier for it to be returned with a name. It’s also a good idea to check tags when collecting belongings at the end of meets to make sure you are picking up your own.
The best goggles to buy are clear speedo vanquishers. These are available in the Hollyburn Sports Boutique. A perfect idea for stocking stuffers!
As mentioned above, the swimmers who are improving the most are the swimmers who are training the most. Skill mastery comes from repetition. It makes such a big difference to make an extra practice each week!

A special thanks to everyone who brought in donations for our Greater Vancouver Food Bank Fundraiser! We filled the box twice and are excited to tally up our final donation amount! More information in the news section of our website – here!

Next up we have our Hurricanes Christmas Time Trial on Saturday, December 18. Swimmers in Monsoon and Swim Academy will be on deck from 7:45-10:30am and swimmers in Pursuit, Typhoon and Tsunami will be on deck from 7:15-10:30am. Sign up on our website!  
 

100% Best Times
Ryan A, Chloe D, Esme F, Olivia F, Tiam G, Gracie G, Stella H, Ashton H, Rhett H, Chelsea L, Ella L, Beau L, Kyle L, James L, Phillipa L, London M, Holly M, Pippa M, Ivana M, Marlowe M, Bianca R, Hannah T, Lily T, Nikki T, Olivia W, Madelyn W, Leonardo W, Kareena W, Mason Y, Ashley Y, Natalie Yiu, Lucas Y

75+% Best Times
Cameron C, Calais C, Vincent G, Harris H, Nicolas RT, Evelyn W, Amelia W

New Team Records
10&under Girls
33.49 – 50m Freestyle – Phillipa Lotz (was Meghan Haigh 33.72 2018)
40.24 – 50m Backstroke – Phillipa Lotz (was Carly Kagna 40.55 2009)

New Time Standards

SwimBC Divisional Championships
Stella Harris        100m Backstroke, 50m Butterfly

Lower Mainland Regional Championships
Pippa McMillan                 200m Individual Medley
Kareena Whitfield            200m Individual Medley
Ashley Yiu                            200m Individual Medley

Lower Mainland Regional Swim Meets
Pippa McMillan                 200m Individual Medley
Ashley Yiu                            200m Individual Medley

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