3rd! dropped another 3 seconds! Bronze bling!

Holy Crap! Yay!

made a Zone cut (summer multi-state meet in Wisconsin, swimming for Team Michigan), only 1.5 seconds shy of a Sectional (the meet next week in Ohio)

Schweeeeet!!

Say, when she swims at the 2016 Olympics ... will she swim from USA or UK?

remains to be seen ;)

You're thinking of poorly stashed hobo corpses.

No, that's the hockey locker room, not the swim one.

I don't think UK athletes get to be on the Wheaties box. Say, maybe glatt will buy two dozen of them with her picture, pull out the bags of cereal, and send the rest of us the boxes. Just so, you know, the cereal doesn't go to waste.

Awesome. Maybe she can be a weetabix girl
"You can't swim on a titchy breakfast."

OMG. so 28th seed in the 200 fly today. dropped over 5 seconds (she only swam it 2 weeks ago to qualify), came in 18th, which is second alternate for finals. Two scratched, so now we're hanging in Holland for 5 hours!

That girl is amazing! :jig:

Yes, yes she is. We had an 8 hour wait between swims. But she dropped another 1.5 seconds and took 14th. The score points, too and it looks like she's 17th in points out of 65 who scored any points at all and and untold number who didn't score. She was the only one to score for her team, but last night her team was 36th in the points table -out of 83.

And now we are home. 5:30am departure for polo practice looming.....

oh and........ The state records for many of the events at this weekend's meets are held by Michael Phelps and one by Peter Vanderkay. mostly from 2008. Which is nice. But..... Why were these Olympians swimming what is predominantly a teenage meet in Michigan in an Olympic year? And now the records are so high, most of the boys don't stand a chance.....

I've done this before for other people. Not two dozen, but saved the boxes of teams/athletes that friends are loony over. I can walk into the office of a cow orker here at work and see, hanging on the wall, a box of cereal that I ate about ten years ago.

Do you have a Joe Montana? ;)

It's really remarkable how almost all your posts report on how much time she keeps dropping.

She's on fire!

Well that's the cool thing about swimming. Whilst it's nice to win and all, even at Olympic level it's still all about setting personal bests.

Well, we survived Sectional Championships. Swimmer Girl had no coach and was the only swimmer from her team, but did a great job warming up, cooling down, adapting to the long course pool and getting in the right place at the right time. And she finished in a higher place than her seed place in all four events, and crushed her previous personal best in the 100 free. And bust another cap.

thank you all for putting up with this. Swimming is now done until the summer.

And now for something a little more violent...... :lol:

Major congrats Hebe.

Now, pics from your meet with Infi please!
We know both of you take a lean photo.

Only one pic was taken to prove it happened, but no Infi, no monster.

Hebe is going to run out of seconds to drop.

We found the cure for that -use a 50 meter pool instead of a 25 yard one. Her 1:06.31 was actually a time drop on her previous 1:01.08 :lol:

:)

Are you silly Merkins STILL sodding about mixing metres and yards????

Hebe is a great swimmer and an awesome young lady. I was honored to get to see her swim. She's a contender!

yuss. Because they love their sports stats. This way, you can have three personal best times for each distance and stroke..... and you can argue about the best way to convert them until kingdom come......

and if you think that's odd, check out the Junior Nationals that were held this weekend in Orlando...... the Prelims were swum short course yards and the finals were swum long course meters. In the same meet.

http://www.ilswim.org/NCSA/

thanks -she was very flattered that you came

OMG she got a a recruitment letter from a college today!

O.O

Wow, just... wow.

Nice.

SCHWEEEET !!!!

OK I'm hijacking this for High School Polo mom so I don't clog up the proud parent thread.

The Skyline water polo team are a little fluid in the season as to Varsity/JV. Polo Girl has played every game in both levels (except when both teams had tournaments at the same time) until this Tuesday. When she didn't play the JV game because she got named to the post-season team -the one that should go to States and will get letters, and it was JV night to honor those for whom the season just ended.

She's a freshman and has never played a game before, although she did train and learn the basics with most of another school's team for a few months prior to the season through our city's rec and ed program.

Tonight was the first game of district championships. As the top seed in the district, we played the bottom seed in the first game. After three minutes, if was 5-0, so the starters got out and the "B-team" got in. Including Polo Girl. After a few more minutes at was 10-0, with polo girl's name on the score sheet. Still in the first period. So then Skyline stopped scoring and started playing drills (no mercy rule, so the game had to play out, although the did run the clock after half time). So we got a skills demonstration.

SHE IS AMAZING. i'm sat in the bleachers with the other parents and I can see so much better than I can when I'm on deck at home games, just how accurate and long and hard her passes are. She reads the play spectacularly, is already taking charge of her line verbally, calling the plays, and has mastered a fair few tricks for relieving the opposition of the ball legally but sneakily (and a little illegal but undetectable stuff too). So i'm sat there and I can hear all the other parents pointing out her nice moves to each other and even applauding on some of them (we stopped cheering after goal three, still within the first minute of the game). We went out for dinner afterwards, and the mother of the girl who was named to the all-state team last year told us her son (just back from college where he plays and now helping coach) thinks she has amazing skill and potential.

I am gobsmacked by this girl. Swimming, yes, we knew she was good. We didn't know how good, but we knew. Polo was an unknown. She played soccer for 8 years and had a good boot and read of play, but wasn't spectacular. She certainly didn't have killer instinct. And polo players are usually tall or chunky and she's neither. Tonight I watched her push a much bigger opponent back 20 feet and then obstruct her pass. By "push" I mean swimming/bulldozing in the water with no hands -they were above water and clear of the player- an opponent who is actively trying to go in the other direction. that there is some power!

Oh and she won all three sprints she did. But to be fair, the opposition were SO bad, I could have won them.

I asked her on the way home what she will do when she has to choose and she said she can;t even think abbout it. I never thought she'd ever consider anything over swimming.

So proud, and yet kind of apprehensive that she may fallout of love with swimming. I'm hoping though, that she will get back into it and take the killer with her. She has already said she can't wait to race a short course 100free now to see how fast she can go. She never said anything like that before (and she used to hate racing freestyle)

Where the Hell is that Like button !!!!

Big congratulations to her! I **loved** water polo, it let me be in the water where I was quite at home physically, and it let me ... "play". Different kinds of swimming, interaction with my friends, lightly restrained aggression against my opponents, sometimes not so restrained. It is amazing fun, I'm tickled to hear how much she likes it, and how good she is at it. Of course, those two things do reinforce each other strongly.

The little quote above? That's the breaststroke talking. Go get'em tiger!

Team is now through to states, but must play the #1 seed in the state in the semi finals at regionals tomorrow. Team is =#3 seed in State.

Well they beat us, but only 3-1. They slaughter almost everyone else. Like 12-0. Polo Girl played at least half the game and had some great passes, defensive moves, an awesome steal and a really good drive. Coach put her in because one of the starter players had two kickouts (three is ejection from the game, so you save them for the important moments... and because she wanted a fast swimmer to replace her as trailer) but then said "well you didn't do anything wrong and did lots of things right so there was no reason to pull you back out".

So we went to the 3/4 place play-off game.

The River Rats -our local rivals and the othe =3 seed- who just beat us in the district finals last week (their only victory over us and a very slender one), were beaten in the semis too -by a team they should have walked over. So they joined us in the 3/4 game -our girls were happy, they wanted revenge.

I told Polo girl "coach kept you in for half of the hardest and best game of the season, maybe she'll start you". She was all "no, no-one but the A-line will be in in this game". She was right -but so was I. :D She started and played most of the game, and once we had it under lock and key, she was pulled out while the B-line got to play :D :D :D


So proud.

Just back from States.......

Three games.

Polo Girl started and played most of all 3. i.e. (for those not in the know) she is officially part of our best line-up. Couldn't believe it, when I saw it in the first game and then.....

...she scored two goals. (Also got two kick-outs)

They went through to the semis.

They ended up 3rd overall. There was some very weird/biased reffing in the semi game vs Okemos (a top seed and one of the hosts), and some very unsporting play from okemos, but I think even without that okemos did outplay them. But then they won the "consolation final" decisively

PG put in some great defence too -today she blocked an oppo from passing for a whole 20 seconds until the shot clock ran out without getting a foul called against her.

So Gobsmacked.

So a cup, and medals for all.

Including my little freshman who had never played a game of polo before March.

She's pissed that this means back to swim practice. Not so much fun, apparently......

Oh and watch this space (or one near it) for an update about cops being called for fighting parents, a drama unfolding as we speak........ apparently the unsportsmanlike fruit doesn't fall far from the tree......

....and today an email from the Olympic Development Program coach :eek: her swim coach will be apoplectic!

Bout damn time they are getting in touch !!! ;)

WTG SG !!!

....and Rookie Of The Year award at banquet.

And we're done.

Swim practice has already started......

Rookie of the Year?

DAMN girl! That's awesome.

Polo Girl==Superman
Swim Girl==Clark Kent

(sorry I couldn't come up with a suitable female pair like those, but you get the point)

Oi, swimmer girl.

The whole sport of water polo gets two gold medals per Olympics.

Swimming gets several dozen.

Oi ZenGum--

Every water polo match gives you four quarters of opportunity to kick, elbow, dunk, punch (oops, sowwy) and run over your opponent. Equal parts finesse and force, speed and stealth, collusion and collision.

Swimming offers no contact whatsoever. Beep, swim, turn, swim, repeat. One's way funner, that's what I'm sayin.

Furthermore, there's no reason she can't get a dozen medals across both events.

Oh dear........ Fun Friday at summer pool swim practice....they played "gutter ball"..... kind of like polo but fewer rules. I saw my sweet child try to drown her coach and pull the suit off her best friend.

(and laughed)

...she says thank you all :)

And back to swimming... got the entry/meet info for Zones in Wisconsin where she will swim for Team Michigan.... (vs both Dakotas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota.) Kind of excited... there's a team uniform (and it's actually a bargain) and a team get-together and pic and she might get to swim on a relay...... (Her club doesn't have enough swimmers at her age and level to get relays going...) She has cuts in both 100 and 200 breaststroke, she may get more at State championships the week before.

you should get SG one of these http://www.etsy.com/listing/41335187...immable-smooth

it could make gutter ball fun

Go, team Michigan!

Summer League Championships today, She was going for the breaststroke record, but missed it by half a second. :( She did win, though!!! in a very close race and a personal best for the 50. (There were approx 60 entered in the event) :D CHAMPION!

She was also 4th in the IM, 5th in the fly and her Medley relay was 6th.

Hector also did great -he just aged up and is tiny, but was keeping up with the big boys -just missing the points places in his individual events, and scoring with his medley relay team. Thor swims tomorrow.

clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap~!

There's only one first place in the Infinite Monkey event and we know whom that is.

hmmmm...


Thor was 13 in the Fly and scored with both his relays too,

Hector missed scoring in diving by 1 point.

Good work guys!

Team Michigan
 

Where's Hebe?

Attachment 39950

sittin on the bench.

No she isn't. Is she? Tell me she's not the one in orange!

:lol:

She's not the one in orange. She is sitting on a bench. She didn't make it back for finals of the 100m breaststroke today, so we went to Chicago and went on a speedboat instead :D 200 tomorrow, bright and early

One year on, first meet tonight. She is not swimming either of "her" events (breaststroke and IM). She asked for some fly and free this year so she got those instead (50 free) and breast on the medley relay. Presumably not the A relay, but we'll see.

She's already been told she's moved up to the A breaststroke relay for the crazy relays meet next week. Coach said "and the pressure is on Hebe this year as she moves up to the A relay and we have never lost this event!" Don't mince your words, will you, coach? :lol:

It's an away meet and Banana Lady is here to see grandaughter swim at this level for the first time.