Thoughts on Our First Meet

We’ve finished our first meet, and what a meet!  First off, thanks to everyone who helped in any capacity. It took a great team effort to make this happen – coordination with the town, with Lakeshore Swim Club, and with Swim Ontario. Then a tremendous amount of work to get the timing system running properly (thanks Wilmot Aquatic Aces Club and Milton Marlins!), along with volunteers, arranging food, drinks, etc.  Special thanks go to Lakeshore Swim Club for having the patience to take us through this endeavour, and for taking the lead role in this meet.

But it was worth it.  There is nothing like holding our own meet in our own pool, and the kids evidently thought so too.  The energy level was high, the swimming was fast, and everyone had fun.

We had a record number of Tritons swimmers attending (35 swimmers not including 4 more who had to scratch) producing a team high 129 Personal Bests (PBs). This is made all the more impressive as the meet only lasted a little over 3 hours. The vast majority of swims also showed better focus, preparation and aggression than we have seen in the past. The coaches are very happy.

Just a sampling of the highlights

• Macrae Hewitt, swimming in his 6th race of the meet including a team record in the 800 free, won the 25 m challenge by 0.08 seconds against Lakeshore’s Shaun Gordon, and finished with 6 firsts (2 team records) and a second.
• Emile Trottier blowing everybody away with an incredible 3:25 in his 200 Free
• Matticyn Rawn-Kane breaking Kylie Day’s team record in the 50 Back
• Rali Kechelieva agreed to swim her first 800 Free ever IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MEET (new team record!), and still went on to PB her Breaststroke, Freestyle and IM races afterwards
• Alan Powichrowski breaking Vasil’s team record in the 100 IM
• Jenn Wilson PBing her 200 Free by 13 seconds, then getting out of the water and onto the blocks to be our 25m Challenge representative, losing by only 0.12 seconds. She then went on to PB her IM race afterwards with a new team record
• Ricardo Rozo shocking everyone with a huge PB in the 100 Free, finishing 2nd
• 17 different Tritons winning at least one race

Now that this meet is over, we should really  start trying to develop our own set of officials so that we are not so reliant on other teams in order to hold a meet.  It’s actually very simple to start this process, and no extraordinary skills are required. Reiko Fuentes, the Meet Manager at our Nov. 9th meet, has let me know about a timing clinic that will lead to becoming a qualified timer.

It costs nothing and will be held on Nov. 21 from about 7:15 – 9:00 pm at

Yoga Room, Gus Ryder pool

1 Faustina Drive

Toronto, ON   M8V 3L9
(416) 394-8726

You will need to create an account at osoa.ca (easy and free) and then sign up for the clinic online.  We can help you through this if you have any trouble.

On to more meets now!  Two more developmental meets in late November and early December, and then Division 3 Championships in mid-December.  Go Tritons!