Arizona Spring State Championship

The Ari­zona State Cham­pi­onship in short-course swim­ming for the 11 – 12 and 13 – 14 age groups took place in the city of Chan­dler. On Fri­day, the com­pe­ti­tion start­ed in the evening, and Mark swam 1650 yards. Levy was the timer, and I was stand­ing with the lap counter at the turn end of the pool, show­ing the swim­mer how many laps he had com­plet­ed. He need­ed to swim 66 laps of 25 yards each (33 to each end). Mark came in fourth but droped almost a minute of his pre­vi­ous time, made the state time for 13 – 14 year-olds, and achieved the Far West­ern time for 11 – 12 year-olds.

Far West­ern is a com­pe­ti­tion that includes sev­er­al states. The map of the USA is divid­ed into four parts, and Ari­zona is in the south­west­ern quad­rant, which includes Ari­zona, Cal­i­for­nia, Utah, Col­orado, and New Mex­i­co, and time stan­dards are set for swim­mers in these states. Only those who meet the qual­i­fy­ing stan­dards for Far West­ern are allowed to com­pete. How­ev­er, this year, due to the pan­dem­ic, these com­pe­ti­tions were not held.

From Sat­ur­day to Mon­day, we went twice a day. In the morn­ing, there were pre­lim­i­nary heats, and in the evening, the top 8 – 16 swim­mers with the best times com­pet­ed in the finals (main and con­so­la­tion), where the win­ners were deter­mined. Just like the adults.

On Sat­ur­day morn­ing, Mark swam the pre­lim­i­nary heat of the 200-yard freestyle and qual­i­fied for the final heat in the evening. In the evening, his final event was the 400-yard IM (i.e., 100 yards each of four dif­fer­ent strokes). The weath­er on Sat­ur­day was very cold. In the evening, Mark swam the 200 freestyle final and came in fifth. Short­ly after, he was sup­posed to swim the 400 yards. We all went to the car to warm up and pre­pare for the next swim. Due to the pan­dem­ic, par­ents were not allowed on the pool deck, so every­one either stayed in their cars or watched through the fence.

While Mark was wait­ing for the next final swim, we heard his name being announced. He ran, chang­ing on the go, putting on his cap and gog­gles, but it was too late. By the time he got there, the race had already start­ed, and Mark missed it. We were all very upset, as he had a real chance of win­ning a prize in that race.

On Sun­day, the weath­er was much warmer. Mark swam the 500-yard freestyle. I was again stand­ing with the lap counter. He had to swim 20 laps of 25 yards each. Mark fin­ished in third place. He swam very well, even lead­ing for a while. How­ev­er, he lost time on the turns and the final touch, fin­ish­ing in third place, which was still good.

On Mon­day, the final heats were held, but the com­pe­ti­tion went by quick­ly. Mark swam 200 yards back­stroke and fin­ished in third place. Then he swam the 200-yard IM, where he fin­ished seventh.

Typ­i­cal­ly, medals are award­ed at the end of these com­pe­ti­tions. But this year, there was no medal cer­e­mo­ny. The medals will be giv­en to the coach­es lat­er. It was good that the swim­ming fed­er­a­tion allowed the cham­pi­onship to be held in some form. Last year, the tra­di­tion­al sum­mer long-course com­pe­ti­tions were can­celed due to the pandemic.

In the final results, Mark scored 73 points. This was the third result on their team, after the two old­er swim­mers who took first and sec­ond places in var­i­ous events.