Ft. Lauderdale International Age Group Competition

This past weekend we took a small group of swimmers to a meet in Ft. Lauderdale. To make the time standard for this meet the swimmer had to at least have an A time standard or better. Normally an A time standard is also considered a Junior Olympic time standard. So in essence this meet was a lot like JO's with the exception that it is bigger, faster, and not limited to only swimmers in the Florida Gold Coast. To put it all in perspective there are about 1,000 kids at this meet from all over the country and the world and in some cases a AA time standard did not make the finals!

I point those facts out because when noting the success we had at the meet it is important to realize the scale of competition. And success is something we tasted much of. That is no small feat! In fact, since my time here I have gone to this meet three times and we have never had as much success as we did this year. In the past 2 years I have only had 2 finals qualifications. This year our swimmers combined for a total of 20 finals qualifications. A final qualification means that you not only scored points for the team but also placed in the top 10. Of those finals we left with a gold, a silver, and three bronzes.

The success at this meet only reinforced the fact that although we do things differently down here we are still doing things right. There were times when I would look around at other coaches yelling at their swimmers during a warm up, or watched swimmers sit around and complain during rain delays. During the rain delays we didn't complain. We controlled the things we could and our team did active stretching and visualisation. During warm up we as coaches trusted the swimmers to act professionally and warm themselves up. They did just that! The thing that makes the success of these swimmers so sweet is that the success is truly theirs. They know what they needed to do to get the job done and they did it...all by themselves. Nothing is more dangerous than a smart, fast, self actualized, self sustained and self motivated swimmer. Well, we brought 7 of those so I cant say I'm surprised with the results.

There is still much to improve, however, and perhaps that is the best part. We are achieving so much and we still have so much to learn. This meet has gotten us really excited for the upcoming DII Championships and Junior Olympics. Keep checking for updates! Until then...Back to work!

View meet results at: http://www.flaswim.com/realtime/2009iagi/