Volume 2013, Issue #24 December 15th
GO FOR THE GOLD
“I’m a Champion of Sign Language”
Esperanto Invite
SCAT Winter Kickoff
Gwinnett Last Chance
Lanier Qualifier
When: December 13th-15th
When: January 18th-19th
When: February 7th-9th
When: February 7th-9th
Where: Cumming
Deadline: November 20th
Where: Georgia Tech
Deadline: January 2nd
Where: Norcross
Deadline: January 22nd
Where: Frances Meadows
Deadline: January 22nd
MEET RECAP: SENIOR STATE
And the Winner is... Gold! (For Real!)
Miley Cyrus got a lot of press in 2013, and she certainly earned it. But she eclipsed another Millennial celebrity who made some hilarious faux pas in 2013, and
he’s not really getting the credit that he’s due. In this, the
last issue of Go for the Gold of 2013, we would like to
honor Justin Bieber’s amazing year.
Maybe you’re a diehard fan; maybe you’re not. Even
if you don’t have Bieber Fever, there’s no denying the
Usher-protégé has had some catchy songs and is handsome enough to date the likes of Selena Gomez. He’s
nothing if not charismatic. But during 2013, it appears the
Bieb came down with a wicked case of affluenza. Our
favorite story from Justin Bieber in 2013 was when he
visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Like any
self-obsessed celebrity, Justin Bieber signed the guestbook at the house in a way that only a self-obsessed celebrity could: “Truly inspiring to be able to come here,
Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would’ve been a
Belieber.” Nice!
Between getting carried up the Great Wall of China
(on people’s shoulders), getting caught in Rio with some
Brazilian “models,” being photographed using illicit
drugs and spitting on his neighbor (those are all true), he’s
also facing a lifetime ban from entering Germany. That’s
because he brought a capuchin monkey named Mally into
the country without the correct paperwork. German customs officials confiscated the monkey, because, you
know, that’s what customs officials are supposed to do.
They’re now asking Justin to cover the $8,000 it cost
them to pay for vaccinations, accommodations and transportation for the monkey. But don’t worry, folks, Mally
was given a nice home at the Serengeti Park near Hanover, Germany. It’ll probably be happier there. Mistake
after mistake, 2013 wasn’t kind to poor Justin.
In no way whatsoever was Gold’s year anything like
Justin Bieber’s. For your team and your swimmers, there
has been non-stop successes and overwhelmingly great
performances, and absolutely no assault charges*. With a
tremendous amount of growth, great placement at the
State and National level, and a current national ranking in
the top 20, we’re riding high. The 2013 Short Course Senior State Meet continued that trend; it was a tremendous
success for Chattahoochee Gold, and a great way to finish
off the year.
We give in-depth coverage to State Championships.
They are special meets because only the elite swimmers
from across Georgia get the opportunity to participate.
First of all, we’d like to recognize our State Champions.
It’s an honor to be an event winner at any meet, but with
competition as rabid as it is in Georgia Swimming, being
crowned a State Champion is, like, three times the honor.
Our State Champions were: Katherine Aikins (50 free),
Lauren Case (100 free, 200 free, 500 free, 200 back, 100
fly, 200 fly), Emma Cole (1,650 free), Kira de Bruyn
(200 IM, 400 IM), Megan Young (100 back) and Alarii
Levreault-Lopez (400 IM). At this point in time, we’re
going to let you in on a great pattern: each one of our four
pools is represented on that list of State Champions.
We didn’t just win the individual races. Our girls almost swept the relays, winning four out of the five swum
over the weekend. Those relays that won were: 200 Free
Relay (Pelzek, Young, Case, K. Aikins), 400 Free Relay
(de Bruyn, Pelzek, Case, K. Aikins), 800 Free Relay
*That we know of.
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Volume 2013, Issue #24 December 15th
(Pelzek, de Bruyn, Cole, Case), the 200 Medley Relay
(Young, Hill, Case, K. Aikins). Impressive, right? And
some of those wins weren’t just by a small margin, but by
a body-length or two!
For whatever reason, Swim Atlanta doesn’t feel the
need to give medals at Senior State, but we would like to
recognize the swimmers that earned one, even if they
don’t actually get one. Swimmers that finished in the top
three were: Emma Cole (500 free), Lauren Oglesby
(1,650 free), Megan Young (200 back), Kira de Bruyn
(200 breast), Lauren Case (200 IM), Alarii LevreaultLopez (200 fly), and the women’s 400 Medley Relay
(Young, Hill, Case, K. Aikins).
Here’s another fun statistic. Not only did we have the
High Point Award winner for the girls-- that was Lauren
Case, B-T-Dub-- but we also had the runner-up, Katherine Aikins, and the whatever-the-third-place-finisher-iscalled (walker-up?), which was the incorrigible Kira de
Bruyn. Oh, and just for good measure, we also had
Alarii Levreault-Lopez snag second place overall for
boys. If you’re still looking for the pattern, astute, reader,
you’ll notice that once again all four pools are represented
on that list.
With all this success, you might be wondering, “how
did the team place?” Hold your horses, and pump the
brakes, because we’re getting to that. Our girls placed
first at the meet. Reread that sentence; we’ll give you a
minute. That’s right: first place. State champions! We beat
Dynamo and Swim Atlanta and everyone else in Georgia.
This is the first time we’ve ever accomplished that feat,
so it’s a historical, momentous occasion. On the boys
side, we placed fourth, also a good showing, especially
considering how young our boys are.
Those placements were a total team effort, so let’s
recognize all the swimmers that placed in the top 20 to
score at least one point: Katherine Aikins, Lauren Case,
Emma Cole, Lauren Oglesby, Kira de Bruyn, Jackie
Hill, Hannah Lagod, Miranda Johns, Rachel Pelzek.
Lexi Glunn, Ben Syers, Alarii Levreault-Lopez, Tyler
Yuen, Nick Loprinzo, Stephen Lane, Brogan Bunner,
Jack Syers and Logan Belt.
Continuing to pile on the accolades, over the course
of three days, we tallied up 18 individual team records,
which is probably a team record for most team records
broken. And once more, each pool is represented! The
individual record breakers were: Emma Cole (13-14
1,650 free), Jaclyn Hill (13-14 100 breast), Katherine
Aikins (15-16 50 free), Lauren Case (15-16 100 free,
200 free, 500 free, 100 fly, 200 fly), Lauren Oglesby
(17-18 1,650 free), Kira de Bruyn (17-18 200 breast,
200 IM), Megan Young (17-18 100 fly), Landon Ballard (13-14 100 back, 200 back) and Alarii LevreaultLopez (15-16 200 free, 1,650 free, 200 fly, 400 IM).
But wait, we’re not done yet. How about we sweeten
the deal and throw in four relay records? Will that convince you how utterly incredible Chattahoochee Gold’s
weekend was? And just like the individual records, our
well-rounded team has representatives from each and
every pool on this list: 200 Free Relay (Pelzek, Young,
Case, K. Aikins), 400 Medley Relay (Young, Hill, Case,
K. Aikins), 800 Free Relay (Pelzek, de Bruyn, Cole,
Case), and 200 Medley Relay (Young, Hill, Case, K.
Aikins).
And finally, the Swimmers of the Meet were: Tiger
Pilkington, Emma Cole, Katie Kassis, Alarii
Levreault-Lopez, Landon Ballard and Lauren Case.
Okay, maybe we should discuss the elephant in the
room for a moment. When you combine the guys and
girls scores, we came up short against our cross-pool rivals, the Stingrays, by just the slimmest of margins: 1,520
to 1,512. Heartbreaking. But fear not, devoted fans, because the future looks bright. The Stingrays are graduating a slew of fast swimmers. We’re not graduating nearly
as many. If you add up how many points Stingrays scored
through 18-year-olds versus how many points we scored
through 18-year-olds, you get very lopsided totals: 35167. So let’s just say the Vegas odds are in our favor next
year.
A quick note: we still don’t have results from the
John Bowles meet from back in November. So when we
get them, we’ll discuss that meet. In the meantime, we’ll
try to think of a nice way to let them know that we won’t
be headed back to that meet.
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