The Richmond Rapids’ short course season continued for their age group development (AGD2) swimmers at the SFU Lower Mainland Regional Meet.
The sessions ran quickly, with many swimmers getting less than 10 minutes between their races. Even so, the AGD 2s did not shy away from putting in their best effort to achieve their goals and new personal bests.
After two days of hard racing, the 12 Rapids swimmers scored a combined total of 27 top-three finishes.
The meet began with the 200 IM. Cindy Du and Rebecca Dong scored big — finishing first and second respectively. After many tries, Dong finally qualified for Tier I Provincials next spring. Coco Xie placed seventh after swimming her first-ever 200 IM as a winter swimmer.
Up next was the 50m butterfly, a very fun and quick sprint event. The Rapids dominated with Yiguo Song and Du in first place, Xie in third, Zhe Rui Tao in fifth, and Mia De Costa and Yan Madorsky in sixth.
It was a very similar story in the 200m breaststroke. Yiguo and Rebecca Dong took first place, Du and Elaine Song came in second, an Rui Tao and De Costa were eighth.
The success in the breaststroke event can be attributed to the skillful swimming by all who competed. The underwater pullouts and great body lines were impressive and showcased the amount of effort the swimmers are putting into their practice.
Rui Tao placed fourth in the 100m backstroke and Matthew Yim placed eighth in the 50m breaststroke sprint.
The individual events of the day concluded with the 100m freestyle and a familiar story with Yiguo and Du in first place. Dong placed fourth and Xie was third thanks energetic sprint in the final 25 metres.
Day one concluded with the mixed medley relay. The energy in the building was electrifying with everyone on their feet and both Rapids relay teams gave it their absolute all.
In the end, both teams got a top-three spot. Du, Yim, Elaine and Yiguo placed second. Yuuki von Huendeberg, Dong, De Costa, and Rui Tao were third.
The second day of the meet was just as successful as the first. Rui Tao placed first in the 100m breaststroke and swam under the Tier I standard. Coco Xie also placed seventh.
In the 50m freestyle that followed, Du came in first and Rui Tao in fourth.
It was a nervous race for Tao as he only had one heat in between the freestyle and 200m backstroke that followed. However, he still put forward his best effort and came in sixth. Dong picked up another first-place win along with Yiguo in the backstroke event. Yim came in second and De Costa sixth.
In the 100m butterfly, Charles Chen and Dong fought hard and placed third in their age groups.
Right after the 100m butterfly, Chen placed in the 200m freestyle. Du got herself another second-place finish and Xie came in fourth. Rounding out the scoring for the freestyle event, Matthew Yim and Elaine came in sixth place.
In the final sprint event of the weekend, the 50m backstroke, was also the most successful with three first place finishes: Xie, Yiguo and Elain. De Costa came in fourth, and Yan Madorsky finished in fifth.
The meet finished with the mixed 4x50 freestyle relay , which was just as exciting as the day before. Both Rapids entries again finished in the top-three, however this time it was in the first and second places.
Yiguo finished the weekend with five first place finishes. Du captured three events and was runner-up in two others while Xie was top eight in all her events in what was her Lower Mainland Regional debut.
Chen shaves 50.70 seconds off his best times. Dong enjoyed a 30.90 overall drop.
