Today was a normal Tuesday for us. Up and out the door for a Phys Ed lesson at 8. As it is so hot we are in the pool and swimming for the hour. We had been doing badminton for most of the term. However the formal competitive swim season is over now, and with no formal training till September we want to keep up the swimming fitness.
On top of that the children have been invited to an International Swim meet to be held in Qatar. So we are off to Doha the capital on the 14th of June for this two day meet. It is a 50 meter pool which will be a nice change and experience from the 25 mtr short course pools they swim in here. We are staying with some South African friends who live down there now. They are leaving a few weeks after that – to move to Perth. It will be lovely to see them before they move on to a wonderful new season in their lives.
The children have done very well in their swimming and have come a long way. This is the first year they have swum competitively. At the B regionals Chloe, Cody, and Shania competed in their age groups. All had aged up and Cody certainly didn’t have time to re-qualify at the new levels with his birthday only a couple of weeks before. They enjoyed the day and all got a lot of medals with both Chloe and Shania winning their age groups. In fact they both managed to qualify up a level for the A’s..which is the top in the Eastern Region (like a state). Cody came 4th by only one point so he was close too.
The A regionals was a two day meet about an hour and half’s drive away. Jarred was swimming 9 races out of a possible 10. He got a bunch of medals and came in 4th out of the top 5 boys in the 13-14 year olds in the region. The girls got medals and even a couple of gold ones.
Then we had a two week break before the 2007 Saudi National Swimming Championships. What an amazing weekend that turned out to be. Full on opening ceremony, parade by all the teams, plus an opening speech and balloon release by an past Olympic medal winner who grew up here. It was a real buzz!
Jarred was the only one swimming this weekend. He had 9 races again and did so well – beyond what we could have imagined. Considering he trains about 6 hours a week and a lot of the boys he chats with (while waiting to race against them) train 28+hours a week, he did exceptionally well. He ended up with a lot more medals and came 13th in the Nation. For his first year at this level he is very pleased with his result and looks to better it next year. It was interesting to note that 2 of the boys who beat him in the A regionals were in the top 5 in the nation,( one 1st, the other 3rd) and the one who came third ahead of him at the A’s came 14th. So he has some tough competition in our area. Good motivation too!
Well so much for our day…this ended up being about the swimming. Long day short – I have the flu and 3 of the 4 kiddoes have sore throats as of tonight. Wayne and Shania had it last week so it was always going to run it’s course.
Here are a few swimming photo’s and a scrapbook layout to go with this post. We’ll be back another day to share some more!
An Altered Life 