Last weekend, 45 FLA swimmers raced in the first competition of the summer, and ended an 8 week training cycle without any meets.  Given that amount of time off from racing, sometimes it is difficult to judge how the first meet will fair. 

“With the training schedule the past eight weeks focused on improving conditioning, all we were looking for was that the kids were finishing races really strong”, said Head Coach Duffy Dillon.  “We knew the initial speed wasn’t going to be there, but that will come later in the season.  If the athletes were splitting the races evenly, the coaching staff was willing to call the meet a success, and that’s exactly what happened.”

True, the kids did come home strong in all races, but there were plenty of welcome surprises throughout the 3 day competition.  “The coaching staff did not have any expectations for many best times, being so early in the season,” Coach Ian Cross said after the meet.  “Having said that, 43 out of 45 of the swimmers who raced did at least one best time, and a majority of the swims were an average of 3 seconds per 100 better than last year.  We are very pleased with where we stand.”

Coach Dillon was already looking ahead to June and July.  “We have a big test coming up with the Grand Prix meet in Charlotte.  That will let us know where we stand a bit more, and then of course our own International Age Group Meet before we go to (Olympic) Trials and sectionals.  But for this early on, how well we swam across the board, we should all be very excited.”

Swimmer of the Meet honors went to Joey Yakimiw and Roger Powell.  Yakimiw had 100% best times, including 4 races with 6 second time drops or better.  He dropped over 20 seconds in just the 200 Breaststroke alone.  Powell, coming off his best and most productive training cycle of his career, improved 10 out of 14 races, including 5 top 5 performances; all of which were his first top five finishes ever at any senior level meet.