Nearly six months of hard work is paying off for the Richmond Rapids Swim.
So far, 37 individual and relay team records have been broken, nine athletes have made single-A qualifications for the first time, five new athletes have qualified for AAs, seven for AAAs, one for Age Group Nationals, and three more for Westerns.
Wendy Yang, Adrian Hsing, and Jerry Liu, who were selected to Team BC in early September, have since attended the first of several camps. In the past, swimmers who have participated in this camp have gone on to be members of the Canadian national team.
Emily De Boer competed in her first international competition, Para Can-Ams, in Edmonton. De Boer has since attended multiple training camps with Canadian paraswimming national team, featuring the Canadian national head coach.
To set off the spring season of championship events, the Rapids sent a squad of nine athletes to Chilliwack to compete in BC AA Championships — the first of two province-wide competitions for age-group athletes.
Bonnie Li, Jessy Barton-Jensen, and Isabella Villasenor, competed as first-time qualifiers.
For some, it was exposure or experience in a multi-day, heats/finals format event, which develops two-stage racing skills and the opportunity to improve under stressful situations.
For others, it is a chance to qualify for AAA Provincials, only three short weeks away. It is there that the Rapids will look to defend their short-course B.C. team title.
The Rapids also hosted over 500 swimmers for Lower Mainland Regional Championships.
Athletes competed in a timed-final format, and ranked and awarded based strictly on times. The event functions as a seasonal culmination for many developing athletes - a chance to race most of their best events, or to try rehearsed skills in a new event.
The Rapids are also sending 14 senior athletes to Western Canadian Championships.
This is the largest Westerns team in recent memory, and as a result, the team boasts a women’s relay squad for the first time in years.
Westerns is a senior-level meet, with only two age categories and no age cap. For the first time, the meet will be a long-course competition, which, since few have long-course experience this early in the season, could mean significant swings in ranking and performance.
The senior Rapids have taken multiple opportunities to race long-course, however, and aim to fall on the good side of that statistic.
