The Richmond Rapids' National Development squad is coming off a double of national and university-level competitions.
Serena Xue and Nicolaas Dekker headed east for the Canada Cup Toronto - hosted by the University of Toronto and Swimming Canada.
Xue, a breaststroke specialist, was up against some of Canada's international-level swimmers, including Martha McCabe, a bronze medalist at the 2011 Word Championships. Xue went on to break two club records in the 50 and 100m events, and was painfully close to a third.
Dekker swam himself into four out of five "A" finals, finishing fourth in the 50 and 200 meter butterfly and 100 IM. His biggest accomplishment, however, was his B.C. record-breaking 100 fly at 54.00, a 2.33 second drop from his seed time.
The following weekend, the whole squad was at the UBC Senior Meet - their first sample of long course racing since the summer.
Xue and Dekker were again on their game, either right on or even bettering their long course time, having hardly been training long course racing at all.
Several others had strong swims, including Kevin Ye, who dropped 10.4 seconds in his 400 Freestyle. Arvin Chua, Jerry Liu, Brandon de Costa, Michael Ge, Katrina Heinonen, David Ng, Nicolas Qu, Max Schaffler, and Tony Zeng all had at least one best time - again, with very little long course training since September.
The Rapids are picking up steam, and plan to continue this trend of improvement and high rankings. The next meet for the senior squad will be their own Fastswim at Watermania and the Paul Bergen Invitational in Oregon.
