[Breeze]

General Update

The new season has started, in fact there was already a meet but we elected to skip it because it wasn’t a sanctioned meet and it was only 2 weeks before the one we will be swimming this weekend.

There have been a number of changes for the swimming in the state of Georgia. The biggest being that no longer will the state meet separate 11 and 12s and 13 and 14 year olds into individual age groups. This has a huge impact on Bear, as his chances of getting a medal at the state meet as a 13 are now practically non-existent, whereas if he was swimming against just 13 year olds, he would likely be in line to win up to 5 medals. Apparently, the change was made to increase the competition in the finals. Currently, in the age specific finals, there are very few close races, the hope is that by combining the age groups, some of the elite younger age swimmers will challenge the older swimmers to perform better, and the younger swimmers will benefit from tougher competition as well. The problem with this thinking is that you’ve just eliminated numerous medals winners by cutting the number of medals handed out in half.

As for an update on the kids…

Brett – while his swimming has been mediocre, since he is a Sophomore in high school and he is adamant about wanting to swim in college, he has created a swimming profile on two major recruiting websites. Surprisingly, there are already a handful where his breaststroke would be in the top 3 of the team. It appears this fact has motivated him a bit, so hopefully he picks up on some of his improvement from the end of long course and summer league to drop time this season. In my opinion, one of the biggest keys for him this season will be to embrace the distance freestyles. His stroke is getting much longer and more efficient, and while this should help his sprints, he’s still just 5’ 6” and 115 lbs., so being a free sprinter is out of the question.

Bailey – Bailey’s group of friends has been split up due to age differences this season…as MK, Ainsley, the two Maddies all started high school so they moved up to the Senior team (where Brett is). After her disappointment at Short Course State last year she was very determined coming into this season. She really wants to improve a bunch and her dedication at practice has been much better. She used to cheat a good bit, but that has almost completely stopped. In fact, she’s so much more dedicated she’s becoming irritated at practice with her 1 remaining friend Maryann because she doesn’t put forth enough effort. Bailey’s biggest goal of the season is to go sub60 in the 100 Fly. I’d like to see her breaststroke improve so her IMs would be more competitive, and I’d like to see her freestyle improve so it falls more in line with what someone with her times in fly typically swim in free.

Bear – continues to do what he does…which is work hard and do things the right way. He’s still doing well at practice…and he’s busting his butt to keep up with Tommy (who is now 6’ with a size 13 shoe at 14 years old). Tommy is shooting to break the team’s 200 fly record, and Bear’s goal is to beat Tommy’s record next season. Bear is also shooting to get the team’s 1000 & 1650 records by the time he’s 14. For this season, like Bailey, I’d like to see the breast improve a bunch so his IMs become more competitive, and we were seeing some of that last season. I’d also like to see him improve his turns. The underwaters are pretty good, but the turns are too slow and often crooked, leading to circle swimming.