17 MEDALS - 100% PROUD

Kangaroo, Crocodile and Buffalo.......and that’s just the dinner menu for us tonight. I’ve almost used up all of the superlatives in my thesaurus to describe our trip so far but I guess I’ll have to keep going because we had another day of days today!!!

Normal routine for the morning and over breakfast coach reads out the news from the day before.

Off to the pool and our media circus continues, after the good luck fairy visits Muriel and scratches her from the 200 fly the boys do their now famous Haka for local radio station Hot 100 FM, Richard says a few words and so does coach then it’s off to work for the last heat session.

It’s a slow start for us with no swimmers until the 5th event of the day. But this gap is filled with talk about the Australian Sport Drug Agency being present on pool side and who would they test?? Eve tried to look inconspicuous by putting on her hoodie hood with EVEL written across the back! There were some very anxious swimmers when they found out that when giving a drugs test sample you’re not even allowed to turn your back while you pee!!! This coming from a group in which peeing in a sink is quite OK!!

One of the aspects of this meet that some of our swimmers have never experienced before is a third day and some struggled with what we in the coaching fraternity commonly refer to as Day 3 blues.

Sam love picked up a massive PB in his 200IM heat as did Kristie Price (keep an eye out for these two later on in the day).

Emma Bailey swum a bold and brave 100 fly and for 75m it looked like she was going to get the big pay off that such risk taking can deliver but then out of nowhere a fridge dropped out of the sky and made the last 25M seem like forever.

It may not have paid off in this event but that risk taking attitude would pay off later when Emma did a PB of over 8 seconds in the 50 backstroke.

All the 13 & 14 year boys did great 100 fly swims with BBB, Ben-10 and Josh freeman swimming pb’s in every single race of the meet.

Claudia and Jessica swum the 100m brs heats with Jess swimming an 8 second PB. When Claudia scratched from the final Jess went in and knocked off another 4 seconds in the afternoon.

Kristie qualified for NAGS in the 50 brs and for the final as well and Sam qualified 7th and Autahi 8th for the 50free final.

Both our relay teams qualified for the finals and Autahi finished off our morning with a 3 second Pb in the 100 backstroke.

We returned to free spirit for lunch and a well deserved afternoon nap. Yet to be finalists and coach returned to the pool for a quick meeting before their final afternoon dip. We discussed the concept that being in a final is not the only measure of success which
matters, I was very pleased with the response from this group and the importance of following process was brought home when Jessica found out ½ way through her loosen that she would in fact be a finalist in the 100 Br.

That brought our total number of Finals swimmers to 11 (the most yet) in the last session.

When the finalist arrived they refocused well and their warm up was punctuated by some very good work on starts.

Just like the morning we had quite a big gap before our first final swim so all of the finalists warmed up again in the little pool. The managers have done a great job of supervising this pool over the meet which means our swimmers don’t have to worry about their gear going missing and there is always a friendly face at the pool side.

Cameron kicked off the afternoon with a last stroke bronze medal in the 100 fly. The next race was Jessica’s first final for the week and she bumped her 100 brs down by another 3 seconds making a total of 13 seconds for the day.

Kurt then scored his second silver medal with a very technical 100 brs. Alex was storming home for a narrow 5th place.

12 & under 50 free Sam Love lane 1 Autahi in lane 8. Sam scores our second silver from an outside lane with an outstanding 29.7 and Autahi takes another pb.

Then it’s time for another first time medallist as Muriel takes a bronze in the 50 fly.

Yet another first time medallist as Kristie price takes bronze in the 50 breaststroke improving over 2 seconds through the day.

Just as Jessica sits and relaxes on the pool side she gets the call that another in the 100 backstroke has not showed so she literally runs to marshalling via the change rooms and swims 5 seconds faster than her morning swim.

Our last medal comes in the form of a silver from Autahi in the 100 backstroke his time of 1:12 is 5 seconds better than where he started the day.

Claudia and Muriel swum in the Ararfura invitational 100 freestyle where they finished 4th and 6th and that was the end of our swimming....well almost.

Now the bank is a hive of swapping and Eve discovers that having EVEL on the back of your shirt makes it hard to swap! Cameron was fortunate that one of the New Caledonia boys had a girlfriend named Camille so his “CAM” top was just right.

It was neat to see our swimmers interacting with others from around the pacific and Australia as they wheeled and dealed.

Our last swim was our victory lap. All the swimmers started together, swum the 50 and gave themselves 3 cheers for a great meet. Coach shook hands with all of the swimmers as they left the pool.

When we got back to Free Spirit a couple from Wanganui were the live entertainment and we heard 10 Guitars before they finished. The swimmers then tucked into their Aussie roadkill spectacular with the Crocodile being the most popular, the Kangaroo not so much and Pavalova with Apple pie for desert.

... and to pay for our dinner the boys did a Haka for the Resort Staff and the girls sung the Maori verses of the National Anthem.

All week the swimmers have been tempted by the resort pool and after getting the plan for tomorrow they let loose for ½ hour before a touchy resort manager came and asked us to quiet down.

And so the last of our competition days comes to a close. All week at the pool I have been so proud of your children they have been a credit to themselves, their club and their families.
Final medal count

2 Gold-Cameron (2) 7 Silver-Kurt (2), Caludia (2),Sam, Autahi, Cameron, 8 Bronze- Claudia (3), Kristie, Cameron, Muriel, Kurt, Autahi,

Total 17!!! 11:30 time to go

Tomorrow we are tourists.
Andrew (Coach of Leisure)