November 3/10  2010 Saskatoon Goldfin Invitational recap   

    What a great meet. It is important to acknowledge the benefit this meet has for the attending swimmers, as we really bonded as a team and had one of the best kick-off travel meets I have ever seen. Our 2 TAG attenders (Nathan Swinton and Darian Zwaan) benefited from close proximity with the Senior group and Head Coach, and really took advantage of the experience by swimming each of their 12 races in best times. Some best times were even by 10-20 seconds per event! For those families who were unable to partake in the Saskatoon meet this year, my hope is that we can manage to send more than 50% of the TAG group in 2011.

    The team enjoyed staying in a hotel together, and a big thank you to Wanda Zwaan and Judie Swinton for preparing all of the meals and caring for the kids during the stay. One of the benefits of Team Travel is that the coaching staff can do a lot more teaching and get the team on one common page a lot easier.

    We took this travel opportunity to play a couple of racing games. First, the senior swimmers each swam the 5 different 200m events and used the 4 stroke 200's and each swimmer's respective 400 IM Age Group National Time to determine a best-overall multi-stroke champion for the meet. The group improved leaps over last season, with Nadine Williams taking 1st prize, Karlyn Elford taking 2nd, and Greg Kozell taking 3rd. This game really demonstrates the importance that Silver Tide places on excelling in all 4 strokes -no matter how good you get in one or two particular strokes.

  The second game we played was for everyone. I awarded Swimmer of the Meet points for a few very important categories: Heat Winner, Medal Wins, and Club Records

    We started the first morning of the meet with only 2 points combined by everyone, but by the end of the 5th session, every swimmer had at least 2 points! This was truly much more than a game - It is a lesson about why we compete and what the goals of competition truly are. We take individual steps continuously forward and then ultimately strive to be the best in the pool when we race.

 This meet, we had a 3-way tie for Swimmer of the Meet:

• Greg Kozell - 9 points. Obviously took some end-of-season advice seriously, and has come into the 2010-11 season hungry to earn the goals he has long had in swimming. There will inevitably be a bump or two along the way, but Greg's commitment to training and racing hard will ensure that he continues to improve throughout the season.
• Karlyn Elford - 9 points. Karlyn swam every event faster than she did at the same meet last season, including a Gold in the 200 butterfly. Getting your hands to the wall first is hard to do, and Karlyn had several heat winners to go with that Gold medal.
• Nadine Williams - 9 points. Nadine not only won the 200 Free in a time 5 seconds faster than last season, she also won the 200 backstroke and medalled in the 200 butterfly. Take a lesson kids, even one of the fastest freestylers in the world practices her other strokes.

It was a great swim meet for all Tide swimmers. Way to go!

Coach Chris Nelson
Head Coach - Silver Tide Swim Club
780.250.0151
Chris.Nelson@silvertide.ca

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