Junior Olympics (JO) is a regional championship meet with qualifying time standards. There are 50 teams in our region, with nearly a thousand total registered 11-12 year old boys. For each 11-12-yr-old boys individual event, 80-100 swimmers on average met qualifying times and competed at the JO regional championship. AJ met qualifying times in 10 individual events, but had to choose a maximum of 6 individual events to swim at the meet.
The morning of Day One consisted of preliminary heats in the 50 Breaststroke, 50 Butterfly, and then the 50y Fly leg of a 200 Medley Team Relay.
AJ qualified for finals (made top 16) in the 50 Breaststroke and 50 Butterfly, so we went back in the evening to swim the finals heats for those events.
In the finals of BOTH events, he placed 10th and also set new team records!!!
Race preparation: AJ is in about the middle of the screen behind the black chairs in blue swim shorts. He is putting on and adjusting (and re-adjusting) goggles first, and then his white cap with the blue shark.
He is in lane 5, about middle of the pool, or fourth up from the bottom (in the white cap with the blue shark).
And here he is in lane 4, again about the middle of the pool, fourth down from the top.
His team is in lane 4 (about middle of the pool, 4th from the top of the screen). AJ swims butterfly in the 3rd leg of the relay. AJ and the team's anchor free leg made up considerable ground - almost enough, but not quite, to touch the wall first in the heat.
Junior Olympics Day 1
