Building Stepping Stones

National Development Group
Youth Cup and Guelph Meet Reports

December 2009

"Challenge, real challenge."
"What have I done to myself?"
"I must have been nuts thinking I could do this!"

There is really the only genuine stepping stone to high achievement. The risk is great, for failure can bring with it many burdensome and highly toxic consequences. You can lose your nerve, your focus, your confidence, and your competitive spirit. However without challenge, the truth is you never really discover or develop the toughness, the determination, the persistence, the resilience to become a truly fierce competitor.

From the beginning of the season, the National Development swimmers have been working hard to build the stepping stones that will help them acquire that fierce competitive spirit. This spirit is learned and developed and becomes a habit and finally a characteristic - an integral part of the swimmer. Since September the National Development swimmers have learned to practice hard, to race under all conditions and to always put forth their best effort, regardless of how tired they felt. Yes there were some doses of sadness and frustration but more importantly so many glorious and deeply satisfying moments - true stepping stones.

Two championship meets concluded the first half of the short course season: Youth Cup and the Guelph Dash for Cash. Here are some standout performances from those meets:

Youth Cup

- medallists included Youn-Ho Choi, Alex Jin and Razvan David
- top 8 point scoring performances came from Nathalin Moy, Jonathan Brodie, Jeffrey Turnock, Rogan Kim and Mackenzie Smith
- special mention to Alex Jin who was the high point winner in the 11-12 boys category

Guelph Dash for Cash

- medallists included Youn-Ho Choi (racing up to 25 events by the end of the weekend), Nathalin Moy (also racing up to 23 events by the end of the weekend and narrowly missing her senior national cuts in both the 100 and 200 fly), Alex Jin, Jonathan Brodie, Rogan Kim and Jeffrey Turnock
- top 8 point scoring performances came from Nathan Cheung, Maggie Runnalls, Yi Wen Li, Joseph Jun, Josh Tong, Matthew Suen
- special mention to Alex Jin who broke a 20 year old nyac record in the boys 11-12 200 Fly with a time of 2:21.93