ELITE NEWS BULLETIN               07-20-09

 

SPECTACULAR START TO CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON AS FIFTEEN 12 & UNDERS POST 26 JO QUALIFYING TIMES;

GALEA, R. HONG, FELSEN WIN EVENTS!!

BALBO (2), BIGHAM (2), COYNE (2), A. DUVVURI, J. FELSEN (2), A. GALEA (5), E. GORHAM (2), A. GUACELLI, M. HONG (3), R. HONG, K. IIZUKA, I. LARAIA, MELCHIOR, NASH, K. STEARNS ALL ADD END OF SEASON SWIMS:

 

            Demonstrating what diligent hard work can accomplish, the 12 & Unders commenced the Long Course Championship Season in the 12 & Under Silver Bronze Championships this past weekend at Princeton University in magnificent fashion. 15 swimmers added 26 Junior Olympic qualifying times. The team totals have risen to 47 individual qualifiers in 208 events!

 

            Dismissing the inconvenience of aging up just weeks ago, 11 year old Andrea Galea qualified for all 5 events she competed in (100 free-1.09.85, 50 breast-42.86, 50 free-32.02, 200 breast-3.15.10 & 50 fly-35.67) to run her JO total to 12 qualifying events in her new age group! Galea won the 200 breast event, placed 3rd in the 50 free, 4th in the 50 fly and 5th in the 50 breast!

 

            Following close behind in the spectacular meet result list was 12 year old Matthew Hong, who qualified for JO’s in 3 events: 200 breast (3.17.80), 200 fly (3.05.81) and 100 breast (1.32.81). The 200 fly swim was particularly studly, as Matt raced just 10 minutes after finishing 2nd in the 200 breaststroke event! Hong also dropped 7 seconds in the 200 free (2.25.10).

 

Five swimmers stepped up and added two JO cuts each:

 

1)                          10 year old Abigail Bigham rocked in the 200 (2.53.68) & 400 free (6.00.68). The 400 was Abigail’s first 400 swim of her career and she looked stronger at the finish, so distance may be in the cards for this one!

2)                          12 year old Juliet Felsen continued her hot swimming, adding 2 more JO cuts to her portfolio (9 of the them in the last 3 weeks). Juliet added the 50 fly (34.46) and the 200 IM (2.46.77). Juliet’s IM swim was the fastest of the day!

3)                          10 year old Emily Gorham added the 100 free (1.21.11) and the 100 fly (1.36.72) to her JO schedule. Emily’s fly was a 3rd place finish while her free was a 5th place

4)                          11 year old Chris Balbo nearly matched Galea in the age-ed up makes no difference category-Chris now has 11 JO events by placing 2nd in the 100 back (1.19.06) and 6th in the 100 free (1.10.43)

5)                          10 year old Jimmy Coyne added a new stroke to his JO competition: backstroke. Coyne, who has previously qualified for JO’s & Zones in breast, went Gold in both the 50 (43.37) and the 100 back (1.34.76). Jimmy’s 100 was good enough for 3rd place and his 50 was 4th best

 

10 year old Rachel posted her first ever JO qualifying time, when she rocketed to a first place finish in the 50 back (41.64)!

 

11 year old Avinash Duvvuri completed the family sweep, becoming the 4th Duvvuri to qualify for JO’s this season when he placed 5th in the 50 breast (43.08)

 

12 year old Isabel LaRaia completed her IM JO sweep by qualifying in the 400 IM with a 2nd place 6.14.86 performance!

 

11 year old Caroline Nash slipped under the 100 free JO time in the 100 free (1.09.89).

 

11 year old Kaitlin Stearns was the 3rd 11 year old to ignore age up situation, as she added her 9th JO swim, this one with her 4th place finish in the 50 fly (35.73). Kaitlin also placed 4th in the

400 IM, but was just over the JO time.

 

            12 year old Andre Guacelli, in the last heat of the last event of the last day, completed his breastroke trifecta, adding the 100 breast (1.33.67) swim to his JO weekend.

 

            12 year old Karl Melchior also has a trifecta, this one in the backstroke, as he added the 100 back (1.21.71) to his 50 and 200 backstroke JO weekend.

 

            10 year old Karen Iizuka, in placing 5th in the 50 back (43.16), added her 3rd JO swim.

 

            Other notable performances:

 

            1) 12 year olld Charlotte Morrissey was just over the JO cut in the 200 back with her 2.57.20 6th place performance

            2) 12 year old Elizabeth D’Altrui dropped over 7 seconds from her 200 breast swim of 8 days earlier with a 3.33.40 time

            3) 9 year old Clio Galea added 3 more Silver times to her resume (her first 3 were last week)

            4) Alyssa Hartigan was silver in all 6 of her events

            5) Sarah Lowe also had silver times in all 6 of her performances

            6) Gabrielle Pick had 6 Silver performances

            7) 9 year old Andrew Huang placed 7th twice: 50 free and 50 back

            8) 10 year old Christina Pick, who ages up prior to JO’s, competed in only 2 events and placed 2nd in each: 50 breast & 50 free

 

            Swimmers who participated (# in parenthesis is number of best Elite LCM best times): Chris Balbo (5), Megan Balbo (3), Abbie Bigham (5), Emily Buckman (1), Meggie Butler (2), Morgan Conley (6), Jimmy Coyne (5), Elizabeth D’Altrui (1), Drew D’Andrea (4), Will Delaney (2), Amy Duren (4), Avinash Duvvuri (5), Katie Fell (1), Juliet Felsen (5), Andrea Galea (5), Clio Galea (4), Tabatha Georget (5), Emily Gorham (6), Andre Guacelli (6), Scott Harris (5), Alyssa Hartigan (6), Matthew Hong (4), Patrick Hong (3), Rachel Hong (5), Andrew Huang (2), Jennifer Huo (2), Alicia Iizuka (1), Karen Iizuka (4), Katie Iovel (3), Rachel Keselman (4), Jared Kovacs (6), Isabel LaRaia (5), Brandon Li (2), Sarah Lowe (3), Michael Macchia (3), Karl Melchior (3), Matt Migliozzi (3), Charlotte Morrissey (6), Julia Muro (2), Caroline Nash (3), Evan Ng (6), Gregory Niccolai (1), Christina Pick (1), Gabrielle Pick (4), Michelle Pick (5), Mikala Quinn (2), Camile Relota (5), Katy Shepard (5), Abigail Shvorin (2), Kaitlin Stearns (4), Abir Thakur (4), Michael Tortorella (2) & Samy Zhong (5).

 

ELITE BACK TO WORK EARLIER THIS FALL:

 

            Attempting to squeeze a couple more practice opportunities out of next season, Elite will start practice earlier this coming training season.

 

            As per the tentative September 2009 practice schedule now posted on the website under Practice Schedule, the Seniors and Senior Preps will begin training on August 31st and September 1st respectively.

 

            The Wave Golds and the Wave Blacks will begin on September 9 (the day after tryouts).

 

The Wave Teals, the Marlin Blacks and the Marlin Teals will begin September 13th. Each training group is starting 1 week earlier than last year.

 

This schedule is still tentative and updated schedules will be posted in August.

 

EASTERN ZONE INFORMATION NOW POSTED ON NJ SWIMMING WEBSITE:

 

New Jersey Swimming has now posted the athlete application for those swimmers who have qualified and plan to attend the Eastern Zone LCM Age Group All-Star Meet to be held at Penn State University from August 12 thru August 15, 2009. Currently, Elite has 18 swimmers who have qualified for 69 events (last summer we qualified 19 swimmers in 67 events).

 

Swimmers who are interested in competing at Zones and who have already qualified are requested to complete the application and mail it in as soon as possible. NJ Swimming will allow for amendments if swimmers qualify for additional events during Junior Olympics. The link is: http://www.njswim.org/njswimmingzones.html. Stephanie Crofton noted last week that uniform items may not be ready by Zones if a swimmer turns in their form at JO’s. Please strongly consider sending your information in early!!!

 

Gail Kology has already made arrangements at the Residence Inn at Marriott for zones and has locked in a great rate for Elite families.  Per her email to Bill this week: “They seem to be the hotel of choice because they have the refrigerator/cook top and with the early rise for the older kids, well, we all remember the issue last summer with finding breakfast.  None of the hotels offered by NJ Swimming offers any kind of kitchenette.  Anyway, I found the rate on orbitz.com cheaper than what the hotel was offering.  However, the hotel and I worked out $129 which was the average of the two prices that I found on orbitz (one price for weekday and then it was cheaper for weekend stay so the hotel averaged the two prices and took off another 5 dollars a day).  If you would like to stay at the Marriott, my contact there is Shawn and he can be reached at 814-235-6960.  Please remind him that he spoke with Gail Kology on Tuesday, June 30 and again, $129 was our final price and he is willing to give that to any of our swimmers for zones. You may be able to get a cheaper price at one of the other hotels (again, no kitchenette, though). I am not obligated to a minimum number of rooms or nights as this rate is good no matter. The address for the Marriott is 1555 University Drive, State College, Pa and they are located about a mile from the University.” 

 
NEW SUIT POLICY IN EFFECT: 1) CHAMPIONSHIP SUITS FOR CHAMPIONSHIP STYLE MEETS  2) ELITE WILL ONLY USE WINTER 2010 APPROVED SUITS:

 

            During the last 8 years and particularly in the last year, the sport of swimming has seen a tremendous amount of focus and money spent on “highly technological” suits. World Class Swimmers have broken a record number of world records since the introduction of such suits as the Speedo LZR and the Blue Seventy suits in the spring of 2008.

 

            The entire world swimming community is grappling with this unprecedented situation (do the suits give an unfair advantage to the best athletes, the lesser athletes, to the rich?) and in the last two weeks alone, FINA (the world swimming federation) has made two rulings: 1) approving a list of approximately 210 suits indefinitely and 2) approving an additional list of approximately 190 suits until December 2009.  USA Swimming has followed the FINA rulings, although reluctantly on the 2nd list.

 

            Given the current circumstances, Elite will, from this moment forward, adopt the following two rules regarding technologically advanced suits:

 

1)      Elite swimmers can race in a technologically advanced suit (or simply: a championship style suit) at any championship style meet Elite attends. This means the meet must be structured as a prelims/finals format for at least the 13 & Olders. All swimmers, no matter what age, will be able to wear a technologically advanced suit at the championship style meet.

 

The list of meets is as follows:  Winter Season/ short course season:  NYC Open, Holiday Classic, CeraVe, Jr. States, Sr. States, Silver/Bronze and JO competitions

                                              Summer Season/ long course season: Memorial Day, Summer Sizzle, Silver/Bronze and JO competitions

                             

Obviously, Eastern Zones, Sectionals, Junior Nationals, Senior Nationals, Grand Prix and International competition meets will also apply.

 

2)      Elite swimmers will only compete in suits that USA Swimming has approved as of January 1, 2010. This means the suits on the amended FINA list are NOT Elite approved suits.

 

It is likely FINA approved the “amended list” suits to help the manufacturers reduce their inventory to an unsuspecting audience and these suits are likely not to be approved post 2009.

 

            Elite will revisit its policy as facts and circumstances change.

 

WINTER PRACTICE SCHEDULE SAME NEXT YEAR AS LAST YEAR:

The Winter 2009-10 practice schedule will be identical as last year’s schedule. Elite will continue to extend the Wavebuster Black Friday night practice to 7:30 pm. In addition, the Wavebuster Golds will utilize Newark Academy on Saturday mornings early in the season prior to joining the Seniors & Senior Preps at MBS later in the season to race.

TRYOUTS TUESDAY, JULY 21; VOLUNTEER TIMERS WELCOME:

 

            Tryouts for Elite’s Winter 2009-10 Season will be held Tuesday, July 21at Morristown-Beard from 4 pm to 6 pm. There will be no pm practices held that day.

 

            Make-up Tryouts will be held Tuesday, September 8 at Newark Academy from 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm.

 

            Elite swimmers and/or Parents are welcome to volunteer their time to help the coaches out at both tryouts!

 

“SOFT SELLING” ELITE IS LIFEBLOOD OF CLUB;

 

            Summer Swim Teams are the lifeblood of year round swim clubs like Elite. Swimmers who enjoy the training and competition of their summer clubs form the vast majority of new swimmers into “winter” or “club” swimming.

 

            The terrific swimming performed by Elite swimmers this summer in their dual meet and championship competition will be the main selling point of the club. Elite swimmers will be among the best (if not the best) swimmers in the their races. They should be, they have worked hard and have earned that right!!

 

            Parents of Elite swimmers are requested to “soft-sell” Elite; meaning they should await an approach by an interested swimmers/parents, but then earnestly provide information to such people upon their approach. Elite parents and swimmers are highly encouraged to point perspective swimmers to the team website and to instruct interested parties to email Bill regarding questions about the club.

 

            Tapping this pipeline will help keep the Elite Swim Club vibrant. In addition, a swim club at capacity (Elite is about 90% of capacity) will help keep the cost down to each Elite family/member. Lastly, each new season sees some existing swimmers leaving the sport or moving out of the area. These roster spots provide openings for new swimmers.

 

            Tryouts for Elite will be held Tuesday, July 21st at 4:00 pm at Morristown-Beard School.

 

            Any questions regarding how one should act during a specific inquiry should be directed to Bill. Thanks in advance for your salesmanship!!!       

 

NOMINATIONS WANTED FOR ESCPO:

 

            Nominations for positions are wanted and needed for the Elite Swim Club Parents Organization. Parents who are interested or who have nominees should email Sandi Niccolai at sandnic@aol.com.

 

WHEN IN DOUBT, CHECK THE WEBSITE:

 

            If you have questions about Elite, your first source of information is Elite’s website located at eliteswimclub.org.  When in doubt, first check the website!!!