Eleven members of the Richmond Rapids Swim Club recently competed in Canadian Age Group Championships in Winnipeg.
The vast majority of the team was under 16 and many were making their debut at the five-day national competition. Adrian Hsing, Rich Rakchtis, David Ng, Michael Ge, Dini McIver, Max Schaffler, Amanda McCallum, and Ethan Chan were all competing at Age Group Nationals for the first time.
McIver, having recently achieved the requisite three time standards to attend the meet, was seeded well outside the top eight. Her primary goal was to finish in the top 16, with a dream of making a finals swim. She did exactly that on two consecutive days in both breaststroke sprint events.
In a meet where many of her competitors were losing their cool and adding time, McIver displayed impressive composure, going best times in every event. It was this intensity and pure racing enjoyment that proved her qualification was no fluke, and McIver was indeed worthy of her two top-five finishes. Her results in finals put her very near to Western National qualifications. McIver also set club records in both events.
McCallum, had the best meet of her young career.
Coming off a stellar showing at Provincials, McCallum was in much harsher circumstances, having to race girls up to a year older than her. Despite this, she made four of seven finals, and was the top 11-year-old in the country in all four. Her 100- and 200-meter backstroke swims placed fourth for 12-and-unders, earning Westerns qualifications in the process. With a time of 2:27.04, McCallum’s 200-meter backstroke was not only a club record, but also the fastest for any 11-year-old girl in Canada in the last decade.
Xue, the most senior of the team, showed the result of years of dedicated work.She finished sixth and fourth in the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke, respectively, moving up as many as 20 spots from her initial seed to make finals. Xue also significantly improved both club records.
Her crowing achievement came during the 200-meter breaststroke. Even though she was out-touched for fourth place in the event, Xue was still fast enough to achieve her first Senior National time standard. This came after close misses in the 50 and 100 meter breaststroke, ending a string of frustratingly close performances. The relief on her face was unmistakable.
The group netted 15 finals over the week, with Hsing catching his first ever in the 50 freestyle. He finished eighth and dropped nearly a second off his previous best time, qualifying for Western Nationals in the process.
Jerry Liu also produced finals swims, finishing in the top eight for three separate events and missing the podium in the 100 fly.
David Ng made his first national final in the 50 breast, re-setting his own club record in the process. Kevin Ye was again strong in the breaststroke events, qualifying for finals in both the 100- and 200-meter races.
The final Rapids swim of the meet was the boys 15&U 4x100 medley relay.
After Schaffler, Ye, and Liu gave anchor Adrian Hsing a strong position for second, the 14-year-old again stepped up for his teammates, dropping a lifetime best relay leg to hold off a charging Montreal team for silver, the Rapid’s highest finish of the meet. The four boys set Open class relay club records in both the 4x100 medley and 4x100 free relays.
Among the inaugurals of the week was the Rapids first-ever representative official at Age Group Nationals. Dawna McIver sat for several sessions as a primary timer for both prelims and finals.
Nicolaas Dekker, a new member of the Canadian Junior National team, competed the week before at Senior Nationals. In his biggest contest prior to this month’s Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Maui, Dekker claimed his first-ever senior national medal, a bronze in the 100-meter fly. Dekker will race both this and the 200-meter fly for Canada at Pan Ams.
Finally, the team would like to thank Gina McCallum, who solely served chaperone duties for the duration of the week. She not only went above and beyond for her own team, but was quickly well known as a hero to several other teams after delivering extra bags of homemade “power cookies.”
