SA SHORT COURSE
A Team of 9 USC swimmers travelled up to Pietermaritzburg from 15th – 19th of August to compete at the SA Short course Championships.
This is the most swimmers I have had go and compete at SA SC Champs before and probably the youngest too, the Team did extremely well, Teri Brown got two 6th place’s in both the 50 & 100 fly showing everyone she is back on her way, Curtis Gericke in his very first SA SC managed to make a final and placed 6th in the 50m fly in a quick time of 25:61 and 15th in the 100 fly, he also pulled of another pb in the 200 fly placing 11th in a 2:10:97 where he was accompanied by his teammate Jono Wanckel who also swam a 4 second pb in the event.
Paige Riddin narrowly missed out on the final of the 50m free in a time of 27:54 which was a full second pb swim, she placed 11th, Bryce Pendock shone in both the 50 fly and 50 breast swimming lifetime bests 25:89 and 29:37 respectively, on the last day he pulled another one out the bag dropping 8sec in the 200im going 2:12:88 placing 12th.
Our backstroke’s all dropped considerable time in their 200 back events, Luke Coetzer 2:14 (7 sec pb), Byrce Grassi 2:17 (3sec pb) and Blaine Kruger 2:12:4 (5 sec pb), Sudesh Pillay also smashed his pb in the 200 breast by 6 seconds.
The highlight of the gala was not the individual performances swum by all our athletes but rather it was when the relays started and our athlete’s raised their level of performance, swimming huge pb’s in pursuit of team glory, the 4x50 free relay team snuck in by 0;001 of a sec for fourth place, beating Players swim team and in the process winning the coach a milkshake in the process due to the bet I had taken with the players coach, the loudest cheer definitely went to the 4th and 5th teams touching the wall and I was reminded once again how crucial relays are for building team spirit as well as for generating better individual performances by an athlete.
The meet was an opportunity for our team to monitor how their winter training is going, as well as to gain exposure racing at this level and to learn from our mistakes, and their where a lot of those, some example’s were not reporting for the semi-finals even though you are first reserve and all of a sudden you are called to race, or not making sure your goggles are tight and having to stop because you cannot see anything, some of our dives where slow off the blocks and definitely we could see who had good underwater work and who doesn’t seem to take the time to focus and improve upon this at training.
The tour was not all about racing though, a lot of the down time was used by swimmers to connect as a team and build lasting friendships in the process.
I believe the team is on the right path and if they continue to support each other and help push each other to achieve their goals, then TEAM USC’S future is looking extremely bright.
