2014 WAITAHA WINTER BLAST MEET REPORT This meet was not a target meet however many of our athletes took advantage to kick start their winter season with a hit out at the new Canterbury Swim School pool in Yaldhurst on Sunday. With a large team of 28 swimmers and Aaron away to a Swimming NZ camp in Timaru, Charles was on board to assist with coaching and we also had Sioban Hartwell and Julia Farrant in the team manager’s roles. Michelle and Paul Johnson looked after the split taking for me and Jo Russell, Chris MacDonald, Kellie Rhodes, Kathryn Jones, Jo Ryan and Amie Wagenvoord assisted the Waitaha club with officiating or timekeeping. A huge thanks to these volunteer parents from both the athletes and coaches. There were 5 athletes making their competition debut for Aquagym. Congratulations to Oliver Aikawa, Sinead Hartwell, Kate Jamieson, Will Jamieson and Emma Mason for a great start to your competitive careers. I want to compliment all of the athletes on the improvement that they have made with their skills. The consistent work that we have put in at training showed in the racing on Sunday with many close finishes won by Aquagym swimmers due to superior skills. There is still a lot more work to do and this must be done in the training pool by repetition. Learn and repeat the skills there so they become an ingrained habit for race day where you can execute them all the time without a second thought. If I have one general criticism of the team was their warm-down protocol. Many of the team were using the pool as a play pool despite many repeated requests from both the team managers, Charles and myself. As you all know a good warm-down after any physical activity is very important. It gives you the opportunity to recover both physically and mentally after a hard race but it cannot be play time especially in a learners pool at over 32 degrees!! Thanks to the team for some exciting racing and relays. The first of our target meets is coming up fast at Jellie Park with the Wharenui Winter Olympics on from the 27th to the 29th of June. We now have the opportunity to get another 2 weeks of solid training in along with enhancing technique and skills to build to further improvement then. Dave Prattley Head Coach PS: Always remember the 3 rules for Improvement 1) Show Up (on time) 2) Honour your team mates with your effort as they will honour you with theirs 3) Do things correctly
Posted on: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 02:41:38 +0000