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2014 Georgia 14&Under Short Course Championships - Feb 21-23 @ GaTech
DAY 1
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Bailey
200 IM* : 42/20 - 2:38.58 (2:33.37/10) : (2:38.91) – Bailey is swimming well, and if her breaststroke holds up, and she gets a better dive than usual, I could see a significant improvement, but I don’t think she comes close to earning points (top 10) in this one. Similar to golf, it isn’t how much you are behind, but how many are between you and the lead. Even if she were to drop 5 seconds, someone between 11 and 19 will probably drop 4 and stay in front of Bailey.
200 Back : 44/19 – 2:37.83 (2:35.27/10) : (2:38.57) – This one is intriguing. There are quite a few kids between Bailey and the top 10, but this time rather than being 5 seconds off the pace, like she is in the 200 IM, she’s only 2.5 off. Also I recognize several swimmers fractionally ahead of Bailey, and I know that Bailey has historically beat them. With a good clean start and good turns, I expect Bailey will challenge for top 10, but my guess would be 12-14.
100 Fly : 34/10 – 1:11.24 (1:10.70/9) (1:06.99/3) : (1:11.76) – Bailey is pretty excited about this one. She really wants to make finals, even if she finishes tenth. She has set a goal to go 1:09.XX, and I think she can do it, as the coach has worked on her not overreaching with her arms, which allows a quicker transition through the stroke and puts her arms in a more powerful position at the beginning of the pull. I don’t think she can get anywhere close to medals, as I expect it will take a 1:05 high to be in the running. I hope she cleans up her dive a bunch this week in practice, or she might find herself just outside of the top 10.
*Note: I was a bit surprised they elected to put Bailey in the 200 IM and not the 1000 Free. While Bailey hates the 1000 free she would have been seeded ninth with a strong possibility of staying in the top ten and earning points for the team. My best guess is they were saving her for the 200 fly the next day…
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Bear
200 Back : 32/6 – 2:37.58 (2:37.48/5) (2:36.50/3) : (2:36.84) – This was surprising to me. Bear is already seeded in a point position, and he is within striking distance of a medal. I don’t expect that he’ll get a medal, but he should earn points. I hope the coach works with him on exploding out of the hole. He is strong underwater, but typically there is a transition delay from underwater to above water that he’ll need to eliminate to get down into medal territory.
100 Fly : 36/7 – 1:11.71 (1:10.73/6) (1:09.41/3) : (1:12.20) – Again surprised to see Bear in a point position, and again he has an outside shot at a medal. Two seconds in a 100 Fly is easily doable, but if I had to guess, I figure he’ll finish around his seed location and earn more points for the team.
1000 Free : 49*/3 -12:28.33 (11:57.85/2) (11:54.45/1)** : (12:37.67)*** - Bear comes into this one in third and he hasn’t swum it in two months. Brett and Bear have been very close in their 1000s this season, and Brett just dropped time down to around 12:05 from 12:30. So maybe Bear can get down to around a 12:00.00. If he can at least hold on to his seed he’ll earn a medal. The biggest problem with this event is not racing the people that you are competing with…because this is swum 14U, Bear will have no idea which kids in the race are 11 and therefore won’t know who to actually “race” in the event. He’ll simply have to set a pace, and hope it is fast enough.
*This event is swum 14 and under so Bear is seeded 49 out of all kids at the meet.
**The top seed in this event has not swum the 1000 this year. The time was a coach entered figure, based on a guess of what the child might be able to do. That isn’t to say that the number is completely bogus, the child in question swims a very fast 500 Free and may be able to hit the time listed, but it is interesting to note.
***The child seeded behind Bear is from the same team as the top seed, and he didn’t swim the 1000 this season either. Therefore he may be significantly faster or slower than the time listed, another interesting note.
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