ELITE NEWS BULLETIN 11-10-08
IN HIGHLY COMPETITIVE MEET SPRINKLED WITH WORLD CLASS PERFORMERS, STRAND
PLACES 3RD:
P. DUVVURI & MARTIN ALSO FINAL:
Three of Elite’s most accomplished swimmers, Michael Strand, Ricky Martin and Priya Duvvuri, participated in the New York City Open Invitational this past weekend, competing against some of the top talent in the Northeast. All 3 swimmers “finaled” in at least one event, demonstrating once again that Elite is climbing the swimming ladder of success.
Because of its highly competitive qualifying times (USA Swimming’s AAA 15-16 motivational times) and its unique format, the NYC Open attracted elite Northeast teams such as the Attleboro Bluefish (Massachusetts), Asphalt Green (host NYC team), Badger Swim Club (Westchester County), Long Island Swim Club, Bernal’s Gators (Massachusetts), Shawmut Aquatic Club (Massachusetts), Empire Swimming (Westchester County) along with NJ swimming powerhouses Peddie Aquatic, Scarlet Aquatic, New Jersey Wave and Eastern Express. The meet is unique in that it is a championship style meet with prelims racing in the am in the long course venue while finals are held in the late afternoon (short recovery time) and is raced in the short course yards venue. In addition, there are 4 final heats (heat 1-swimmers placing 13 thru 20 in the morning prelim heats, heat 2-swimmers 7 thru 12, heat 3-swimmers 3 thru 6 and the “ultra” final-swimmers, where am finishers 1 & 2 race mano-e-mano!). This format forces the swimmers to really race in the grueling am lcm venue to get to finals and then forces swimmers to race really hard again in finals in the short course venue.
Olympian Elizabeth Beisel (from Rhode Island though she trains with the Bluefish in Massachusetts), who placed 4th and 5th in Beijing, competed along with Olympic Trial qualifiers Annie Zhu (14), Sarah Giberson (16), Alex Forrestor (17) & Laura Sogar (17) and against the metropolitan area talent. In addition, 40 year old Michael Ross (who still holds records at Princeton University) competed and continues to impress (4nd in the 50 free-21.77 & 2nd in both the 100 free 47.29 and 200 free-141.51!!!).
Swimming in the “Super” finals after placing 6th in the long course prelims, Strand rocketed to his career best in outpacing his heat with a blistering 52.51 100 yard back time. This time is just .3 over a Junior National qualifying time!! Strand also placed 8th in the 100 fly (in another career best 53.28 time), 13th in the 200 back (winning his final heat) in a 2.00.79, & 14th in the 200 breast (with the 8th fastest yard time 2.18.50).
16 year old Ricky Martin, who competed in 5 events, placed 14th in the 50 free (22.91) and 17th in the 100 free (50.05). 15 year old Priya Duvvuri, sneaking into finals by .01 of a second, moved up 3 spots to place 17th overall with her 1.03.04 time in the 100 back.
Full results of the meet can be view at http://www.asphaltgreen.org/AGUAmeets/index.htm.
ATTENDANCE THRU OCT STILL STRONG; 3 OF 7 TRAINING GROUPS AVERAGING
OVER 80%; ALL GROUPS OVER 75%, WAVE TEALS LEAD WAY WITH 90.3%!!! ATHLETES
RECOGNIZED:
Practice attendance is the foundation of improvement. Starting the season with good attendance (and thus, great work habits and a great aerobic base), is the way to faster swimming. During Sept, the Elite Swimmers showed their diligent work ethic by attending practice at an astonishing rate of close to 85% as team!!! As of yesterday, the Wavebuster Teal training group leads the outstanding Elite attendance race by averaging, as a training group, 90.32% attendance!!! The Wave Teals are followed by the Seniors (86.41%), Senior Preps (82.52%), Wave Blacks (79.52%), the Marlin Blacks (76.45), Wave Golds (75.83%) & the Marlin Teals (75.37%).
At the end of the Season Awards Dinner, Elite swimmers with 85% attendance (or greater) will be presented with the Attendance Award. This award, plus attendance requirements for swimmers who want to be promoted, have positively motivated Elite Swimmers to come to practice.
78 swimmers (43%!!!) are currently on track to win the attendance award (who have an 85% or higher attendance record-* designates perfect attendance!):
Marlin Teals: Ethan Blum, Richard Carchia, Ryan Dorneo, Alex Jacobs, Sara Jacobs, Sandeepan Mukherjee & Will Stearns
Marlin Blacks: Megan Balbo*, Clio Galea*, Katie Iovel*, Jessica Kraus, Brandon Li, Natalie Pruitt & Abigail Shvorin
Wavebuster Teals: Brielle Barba, Abbie Bigham, Katie Brosnan, Emily Buckman*, Meggie Butler*, Morgan Conley, Jimmy Conye, Elizabeth D’Altrui, Deyoung Don, Katie Fell*, Andrea Ferrell*, Katherine Friday, Emily Goad, Emily Gorham, Scott Harris, Jason Hoehn, Patrick Hong*, Andrew Huang, Rachel Keselman, Sarah Lowe, Charlotte Morrissey*, Mikala Quinn, Camile Relota, Abir Thakur & Michael Tortorella
Wavebuster Blacks: Chris Balbo*, Lindsay Behar*, Drew D’Andrea, Andrea Galea*, Jess Gorham, Emma Harris, Alyssa Hartigan*, Isabella Morreale, Caroline Nash*, Taylor Savarese, Rachael Tortorella* & Caroline Watt
Wavebuster Golds: Matt Ahlmeyer, Anthony Don, Alli Dorneo, Sam Duren, Matt Hong, Regan Kology, Jessie Lowe, Katie McGrath, Kara Miller-Radest, Eric Ocheretyanger, Ryan Sebastian*, Kaitlin Stearns*, Lindsay Stearns
Senior Preps: Brent Jones, Greg Keiser, Emmie Lai, Sarah McGrath, Brendan Miller-Radest, Erica Takahashi, Lexi Tedesco & Ryan Wyer*
PRACTICE SCHEDULE CHANGES (SLIGHTLY) NOVEMBER 17 FOR MARLIN TEALS
& MARLIN BLACKS….
Swimmers and Parents are reminded that the practice schedule will change come Monday, November 17. The changes will only affect the Marlin Teals and the Marlin Blacks practices.
Starting Monday, November 17, Newark Academy’s high school and middle schools will begin training for their winter competitions. To accommodate NA, the immediate effect will be that the Marlin Teals and Marlin Blacks will “lose” 15 minutes of training (actually, we add 15 minutes of training in September and October and just revert back to the original practice schedule) and begin training at 5:15 pm on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. Practice for these groups will still conclude at 6:00 pm.
….JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE NOT TO
LOOK AT OUR PRACTICE SCHEDULE: HIGH SCHOOL MEETS TO DISRUPT PRACTICES:
In December, January and thru the middle of February, high school & middle school swim teams conduct practice and meets at the two pools Elite uses. Incredibly, a total of 7 high school and middle school teams use either Newark Academy or Morristown-Beard School during this time in addition to Elite. What these means to us is that Elite’s practices will be disrupted as meets will encroach into Elite’s practice times.
On
days when there are no meets, Elite’s practices will be held at the identical
time. However, on those days when a high school or middle school is using one
of our pools for a meet, our practices might be shortened at the front end or
on the back end. And meets get canceled and rescheduled. So, please continue
to check the practice schedule for practice time changes on a daily basis!!
“COLLEGE DAY;” BILL TO DISCUSS THE
COLLEGE HUNTING/SWIMMING RECRUITMENT PROCESS ON FRIDAY, NOV 28:
All swimmers (particularly juniors and sophomores) and parents are welcome to a seminar Bill will conduct on Friday, Nov 28 at Morristown-Beard School from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm regarding the College Hunting/Swimming Recruitment process.
Bill will provide his insight into when to start the college hunting process, how to determine what colleges are right for the student, how to attack the recruiting process and when and how often to engage conversation with college swim coaches.
Swimmers should bring pens and several pieces of paper to take notes.
REPORTS OF PARENTS NOT RECEIVING WEEKLY
MEMO EMAIL; IF YOU HAVE BEEN ACCIDENTLY “DROPPED”, PLEASE CONTACT BILL:
5 separate families have contacted Bill that they have not been receiving the blast weekly memo email for the past two weeks. Bill, in conjunction with a parent of a former swimmer (Paul Tukey), is working on solving the problem. If you have also been accidentally dropped, please notify Bill immediately.
BEST TIME RIBBONS PROVIDED BY ESCPO; SWIMMERS TO RECEIVE THEM AT
PRACTICE;
The Elite Swim Club Parents Organization (ESCPO) sponsors and funds a best time ribbon program for the Elite Age Group Swimmers. This year the ribbons will be distributed by the Training Group Representatives either before or after practice. All best time ribbons to date for this season will be distributed beginning this week. Going forward, the ribbons will ready for distribution within a couple of days of the meet results being posted on the website. If you have any questions regarding the production of best time ribbons, please contact Carolyn Balbo at cbalbo@comcast.net. The Age Group Training Group Representatives are as follows:
Marlins - Jodi Shepard jc.shepard2@verizon.net
Wave Teal - Amie Goad AMIEGOAD@aol.com
Wave Black - Kelly Savarese kksavarese@gmail.com
Wave Gold – Margie Lowe swimming07@zoinks.us
DATES CHANGED FOR 9-10 SILVER BRONZE CHAMPIONSHIPS AND 11-12
SILVER BRONZE CHAMPIONSHIPS:
The dates for the 9-10 Silver Bronze Championships and the 11-12 Silver Bronze Championships have both been moved back one week (giving our swimmers an additional week in the training cycle). Please check the updated Meet Schedule posted on the website. In addition, two 11-12 times have been corrected on the NJ Swimming website.
Elite will be hosting the 9-10 Silver Bronze Championships at Newark Academy. All Parents of 10 & Unders (including 8 & 7 year olds) are expected to work this meet. Please mark your calendar.
TOP 10 ALL-TIME
LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED & POSTED:
Since there have already been significant additions to the list, Elite’s Top 10 All-Time List has been updated thru this past weekend and posted on the team website. Check out the new additions!!!
DISTANCE DERBY 2
WEEKS OUT; PLEASE CONTACT DEBBIE SCHERB:
As it is now November, Distance Derby is only 2 weeks away. If your child is in the meet and if you have not already done so, please contact Debbie Scherb, Meet Coordinator, to coordinate your efforts at the meet. This meet is one of Elite’s efforts to provide our swimmers and all NJ Swimming members an opportunity to provide competitions (yesterday, X-Cel and White Waters provided that opportunity for the swimming community!).
Debbie Scherb’s email address is: debra.scherb@novartis.com.
LOST ITEMS AT
MEETS BROUGHT BACK TO NEWARK ACADEMY:
Items that are left at swim meets and that are clearly Elite belongings are brought back to Newark Academy on the Monday following the meet. If the item has a name in it, it is easily returned to its rightful owner. If your shirts, caps and suits do not yet have your name in them, please take the time to do so in order to insure your belongs get back to you.
TWO UNEXPECTED AND
INTERESTING OPPORTUNITIES FOR ELITE SWIMMERS:
Being among the best usually provides unexpected and interesting opportunities. Here are two for Elite Swimmers to explore:
Olympian
in the neighborhood: Gary Hall, jr at Drew University on Nov 15th:
Three time
Olympian Gary Hall Jr. will be hosting a seminar at Drew University to raise
awareness for World Diabetes Day. Hall will conduct a two-hour clinic with a
swim-a-thon at the end to raise money for diabetes on November 15th at
10am. All the proceeds will be donated
to the Juvenile Diabetes Fund.
Gary has challenged those who want to attend to raise $15,000 for this event!!
Attached to this memo are the registration and donation forms.
Journalism Internships
Available with Swimming World/BAC Long Course January Meet:
With the overwhelming success of the Summer 2008 Beijing Olympics and what swimming as a sport provided, Swimming World and joined forces with Berkeley Aquatics Club to provide journal internships involving the BAC Long Course Winter Meet (formerly known as the Burgdorff Invitational) this coming January.
Those who are pick will have an opportunity to interview Olympians, be involved in producing content for Swimming World’s magazine and website, and interact with the Swimming World Staff.
Forms for applying for the internship are attached to this memo.
TIMING EMAILS LISTED AS SPAM; PLEASE ADD CAROLYN BALBO AND MARY
D’ALTRUI TO YOUR EMAIL LISTS:
Several people informed Carolyn Balbo, one of Elite’s timing
coordinators at the meet yesterday that the timing e-mails that she sent out
went to their SPAM folder. Please add both Carolyn’s e-mail address cbalbo@comcast.net and Mary’s D’Altrui’s
e-mail md‘altrui@guideline.com to your address books. Hopefully this will
prevent future e-mails from going to SPAM Folders.
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!!!