Holiday Classic Recap
A fun, festive weekend to wrap up racing for 2023. Check out a recap from each group below!
TREX: The TREX groups had some very gutsy swims at the Holiday Classic and saw five more swimmers qualify for the Festival meet at the end of January. The C group swam their first 200 freestyles, many in the B group their first 200 IMs, and for those A swimmers who hadn't yet, it was time to knock off a 100 butterfly. TREX swimmers took their races out fast and brave and finished strong. They held their breath into their finishes, nailed their turns and executed underwater dolphin kicks off starts in free and fly that took them farther, faster, and more efficiently. We saw a lot of great TREX performances to round out so much learning and training in the first part of the season!
12A: The swimmers in 12A had a great meet with an abundance of best times, great races, and medals. In the finals, there were many races close together and it required guts, perseverance, and learning how to race fatigued. It was impressive how many stepped up their efforts and swam two or three great races in a row, swimming personal best and racing their peers. Congrats to Omar Mattar for qualifying for the Provincial Championships in the 50 backstroke and the 100 backstroke races. Divay Malik swam the Championship standard in the 50 back and Abderraouf Kadri in the 200 back. Many other swimmers made huge strides in their performances. It was so great to see. I am looking forward to getting back to training in 2024 and seeing how fast the group will get.
12B: The 12B swimmers raced hard advancing from preliminaries to finals. With medals up for grabs they were able to lift their performances and swim away with a handful of hardware! They were pleased with their results and confidence in their growing abilities. Being able to connect the hard work that goes into perfecting skills and physical ability to fast swimming is an invaluable experience that motivates and drives swimming forward.
12C: 12C had a great race in the UCSC Holiday Classic, all the swimmers who participated in the 12C competition performed very well. In each competition, they learned and practiced the tactics and set up their own goals and strove for it. Their results improved significantly, and most of the Swimmers won their first medals in this competition. From each race, they gained self- knowledge, found shortcomings, learned to withstand pressure and accumulated experience in the competition. The swimmers have more confidence and goals for next year's training. Congratulations to all the team members on their big progress. Congratulations to
Hudson Wang for achieving his first two provincial standards for 13 years category in 50m Fly and 50m Breast. Congratulations to Sebastian Palacio for achieving his first provincial standard in 50m back.
12D: The UCSC Holiday Classic was an awesome opportunity for the 12D group. Many of the swimmers from our group had their first experiences with finals and a finals session. Seeing the athletes excited for their events made this coach’s heart three times bigger. Furthermore, this meet offered a structure that was quite challenging. The swimmers responded well to having to swim several events a session. Lastly, it was impressive to see the swimmers compete in some longer events during the swim meet – most of which were picked by the athletes! This gives me great confidence in the strides we have already made and looking to improve in 2024.
Provincial: Our Provincial crew performed very well at our final swim meet of 2023. Many of our athletes had just come off a big weekend of racing in Victoria, and managed to still pound out some new best times. The hard work the swimmers put into our most recent training cycle showed through the technical development these athletes displayed. With all these big swims we were able to fill most of the 13 & over heats during finals both Saturday and Sunday. It was great to see the UCSC team spirit and to see our older athletes supporting our TREX and 12 stream swimmers. I can't wait to see how our Provincial athletes carry this dedication and success into 2024 after we enjoy a well-deserved holiday break.