NYAC Training Groups
 Sabrina Ng Coach: Provincial 1 |
Conquering all Opportunities with the right Skills | |||||||
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One cannot take advantage of any opportunity if the proper skills and knowledge were not acquired beforehand. Our Provincial 1 swimmers have experienced this throughout the past 6 months. Every swim meet is an opportunity. But they have yet to find the right 'equipment' to conquer the meet. It takes time and commitment to build all the skills needed to succeed. Our provincial 1 swimmers have trained hard to make the impossible tasks a mere hurdle on the road of all possibilities. Not only are they anxious to take on every challenge, they are constantly pushing and supporting each other on the way. The group has excelled as a unit - fully committed and motivated to do what they love: swimming. During the first 3 months of short course season, our swimmers adjusted to the intensive training program going on average 4 to 4.5km a practice. They acquired the mechanics of each stroke, how to relate speed to stroke rate and distance, and most importantly, the concept of pacing. The outcome of all that hard work was then displayed in Youth Cup/Mega City, where 80% of the group became Central Region qualifiers and 5 of them got provincial cuts. We also attended the Marilyn Bell meet weekend after that for the distance swims. And 75% of them achieved their provincial pre-requisites before the Christmas break. Once we restarted training in the New Year, our swimmers stepped up in their intensity. We immediately went into our attack phase where many of the sets were focused on understanding race strategy. They acquired the knowledge on how to take control of the set and to challenge the pace times. They understood the only way to better results is to train faster than they previously raced. It is that mentality that got our entire Provincial 1 group to be 100% Central Region qualified by the Etobicoke AB meet. At the Central Region Short Course Championships, all swimmers were at the peak of their performance. Results: 94% of personal best times, and a total of 8 provincial qualifiers. Many of them have personal bests for all of their events. Some of them, despite adding time in a few races, learned valuable lessons and were inspired to improve for long course season. The majority of our qualifiers made five or more Central Region standards. That speaks volumes to our swimmers' ability to race any stroke at any distance. The Provincial
Short Course Championships has been a great success for our group.
The two objectives for our swimmers going into this meet were
1. to do everything right, and 2. to try to make top 8. They focused
on practicing their starts, turns and finishes during the two
weeks before the meet and it proved to be key in achieving even
faster times. Four of 8 qualifiers were first-time provincial
level competitors and this proved to be a great learning experience
for them. Overall, Provincial 1 swimmers have been very competitive in their respective age groups and continue to strive for better performance in the upcoming long course season. They are looking for more opportunities to showcase what they have been training hard for. As a group of motivated competitors, they will not quit until they get to their destination. As their coach, I'm very proud to work with every one of them and looking forward to end this 2009-2010 season with a big bang! Short course
season overall performance highlights: Individual
performance highlights: | ||||||||
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