SAISA swimming, the culmination of months of training and effort, Our team has been working incredibly hard to prepare for the upcoming competition. Our confidence was high going into the meat, as all our times were faster than they were last year, as well as being faster than the times we gave in as our seed times. Personally, I was confident in my ability to make the finals for most of my events. In particular the 100m free, 50m free and the 200 back. But the set of events that had motivated Jack, Ritheek, Takuro, and Myself the most were the relays. The 4 by 200m freestyle event, 4 by 200m Medley Relay, and the 4 by 400m freestyle relay. Our goal from the end of SAISA 2018 had been to break all 3 relay records. It is even part of my overall CAS goals. It really boosted our confidence that our seed times for the medley and 200 free relay were only 2 seconds away from the SAISA records. Overall I felt that our age group in particular went in confident that we would be able to break some records and win medals.

Day 1: 

The day started off immediately as we arrived on the Lincoln school campus. I caught up with some SAISA friends that I hadn’t seen in a year and spent most of the morning talking with them about the tournaments and the events we were entered into. Eventually, our conversation had to come to a close we prepared for the opening ceremony. Every athlete and coach from all the SAISA meats in the gym behind the banner of their respective teams; it is the start of SAISA swimming 2019.

We then proceeded outside to take a team pictures with the traditional nepali scarfs we received during the opening ceremony.

Finally at around 9am the warmups began and finally SAISA swimming truly began. The events that i was entered in for the day were the 50m freestyle, 100m backstroke and the 4 by 200m freestyle relay. This was shaping up to be my toughest day, as including finals I had around 5 swims and they were all sprints. My first event of the day (50m freestyle) finally came around, I was swimming in an incredibly competitive heat, alongside Ritheek. I knew that in order to make the final 6 i needed to come at least 2nd in my heat, and luckily with a time of 27.08 I scraped through, edging out 7th place by 0.02 seconds. I was thrilled as i never thought i would make it into the final of one of the most competitive events in SAISA. This personal victory was great as it boosted my morale for the rest of the day. It was incredible as well for the team as out of the 3 swimmers they entered into the event (Ritheek, Jack and myself) all 3 of us made the finals. This not only was great for the total points, it further cemented in my mind that we would be able to crush the SAISA record for the relay in the evening. My second event of the day was the 100 back, this unlike the 50 free it was one of my specialty event. I had high expectations for myself in this event and unfortunately I didn’t perform like i wanted to. Placing 7th over all and making the B final. This was a disappointing outcome as the time i achieved of 1 minute 10 would have gotten me into the finals and given me a shot at a medal according to last years time. However this was the last event i had in the morning so i decided it would be time to rest, eat and mentally prepare for the A final of the 50 free, B final of 100 back and the relay which would be the last event of the day. Eventually the afternoon events began with the warm at at around 2:45pm. Nerves were high for afternoon as the OSC team wanted to make our mark on the scoreboard by placing on as many events as possible. I was particularly nervous going into the 50 free final and this was reflected in my performance in the pool. I got a time of 27.35 seconds, over 0.2 seconds slower than my prelim times, and disappointing in that i was unable to break the 27 second barrier and achieve a time of 26. However I was satisfied with my place, and i was happy for my teammates, Ritheek and Jack who placed 2nd and 4th respectively. The backstroke B final, was a relatively relaxed event. I managed to secure my 7th place position, whilst conserving energy for the 200 free relay which was immediately after. Then came the last event of the day. The 200 freestyle relay. The OSC 15-19 boys team, which consisted of Ritheek, Jack, Takuro and myself were swimming in the fastest heat, seaded 1st. Finally we were at the relay, the event we had been thinking about since 2018. The excitement and the motivation was there and our hard work and heart was reflected by our performance in the pool. We shattered the 200 freestyle relay by 2 seconds. This race was by far the most memorable moment of my saisa experience.

Day 2 

Day 2 rolled around and I felt great. We had succeeded in everything we set out to do on day one, taking the saisa relay record and making a mark on the scoreboard. Day 2 for me was more relaxed than day 1. I would be swimming the 100 free, 200 back and the relay, so over all i had 4 swims, one less than yesterday. Both individual events that i would be participating are 2 of my 3 specialty events. In the 100 freestyle is made the final seaded 4, and I placed 6th in the 200 backstroke. So far this had been my most successful day. However we ended disappointed, as we came 2nd in the 4 by 200 medley relay. We swam in the first heat, as we were given an incorrect seed time of 2min 15s. Despite this we managed to break the SAISA record, until ASC broke the record we set swimming the the 2nd heat.

 

Day 3

The final day tensions were high as we were slightly behind Lincoln in 3rd place. We were determined to beat Lincoln and secure an over all top 3 place. I only had 1 event for the day aside from the relay, which was the 200 free. This however was one of my worst races as i started sprinting the first lap, only for the referees to call it a false start, so when i jump in for the second time i was too tired to keep up the pace i wanted to keep throughout the race and i came 7th. I spent most of the day spending time with friends from other schools, enjoying the food and having a fun last day. However as the time for relay drew near i started to focus. We were more determined than ever to break the record, however it wasn’t meant to be. Even though i achieved a new personal best time of 59.27 seconds we came up short behind Lincoln. However good news was to follow at the closing ceremony were OSC won 3rd place and 15-19 boys were the age group champions.

Reflection

Overall this SAISA will hold a special place amongst the many SAISA’s I have been to. I can confidently say that so far it has been the competition i trained for the most. I achieved new personal best times in every event, and we technically achieved our goal of breaking all the relay records (we just didn’t set the new ones). However SAISA is more than the competition. Meeting old friends and making new ones while soaking up the culture of the country will always be a memorable experience.