SAISA Swimming 2019 Kathmandu, Nepal (October 17th– 19th)
SAISA or The South Asian Inter-Scholastic Association is where 8 international schools compete against one another in sports or arts. However, two of the international schools are from the middle east; Oman and Jordan.
The 8 international schools in SAISA:
- India
- American International School of Chennai, Chennai (AISC, Raptors)
- American School of Bombay, Mumbai (ASB, Eagles)
- Bangladesh
- American International School of Dhaka, Dhaka (AISD, Tigers)
- Nepal
- Lincoln School, Kathmandu (LS, Snow Leopards)
- Oman
- The American International School of Muscat, Muscat (TAISM, Eagles)
- Jordan
- American Community School, Amman (ACS, Scorpions)
- Pakistan
- Karachi American School, Karachi (KAS, Knights)
- Sri Lanka
- Overseas School of Colombo, Colombo (OSC, Geckos)
When the team was selected for SAISA I was really excited as I thought our swim team was a good contender for the top 3 spots, as our senior groups and some of the junior groups were pretty strong. Except that thought changed completely when we arrived at the Lincoln School from the airport, everyone in the senior’s group went on their phones, connected to the school wifi to look at the SAISA swimming event schedules. I was looking at all the 15-19 boy’s events I was going to swim for and I was terrified when I saw that most of my time for the events only placed top 12 not even top 6 or 3 when I was expecting to be placed pretty high for the prelims. I started getting so scared that I lost all my confidence in the events I was going to do the next day, I was shocked that my teammates had to help me get up from the floor.
Arrival in Nepal (15-19 Group)
(Photo Creds: Hana)
This year was the most competitive SAISA Swimming I had ever experienced in all of my 7 years in the sports, as it was competitive but not so competitive that the whole team almost had barely anybody on the top 6. We were usually for the past 3-4 years one of the top 3 teams in SAISA swimming easily as we always had a bunch of strong swimmers and this year most of the times in this year’s event were 2 or 6 seconds faster than the last year finals times, and in swimming 1 second is a huge difference.
On the first day in the opening ceremony, I didn’t have much confidence in the events I was going to swim but I just had to change my attitude when doing my events as I had to just compete to my fullest. I started off the day 1 competition with the 15-19 100m backstroke, where I was seeded 7th and made it to the finals I was able to place 6th overall. I also had the 200m breaststroke which I was seeded 5th and came with a 3rd place overall which I was surprised because usually, I am not good at timed final events. So, it was somewhat of a good start on the first day of SAISA. My last event for the day was the 15-19 boys 4x50m freestyle relay, with Jack (1st leg), me (2nd leg), Karven (3rd leg) and Ritheek (anchor). We were tied for first in the program as OSC and LS had put the same fake time of 1:50.00, but when we raced it we won 1st place by 2 or 3 seconds ahead.
Day 2, I had to swim the 100m IM and 200m Backstroke which I was seeded at 7th and 8th. I was expecting to get at least the top 4 for the 100m IM since I had placed 3rd place for it last year in Jordan but came home with a 5th place ribbon. For the 200m Backstroke, I was expecting at least a top 6 as I was put in the slower heat so even if I came top 3 in my heat I wouldn’t know if that would be good enough since the faster heat would go after me. I was in the same heat as Karven, so for that race, I only thought of racing Karven and I ended up getting 5th place overall (1st in my heat) which I was proud and fine with. It was coming to the end of the day, it was time for the 4x50m medley relay, this was the team event where the team and I were hoping to take home the 1st place. Because of the coaches putting the wrong seed time for the relay we were placed in the slow heat, we came first in our heat by 15 seconds and because we were put in the slow heat we didn’t have a set time to aim for but we had to set the time for the 1st heat. We came with an overall of 2nd place.
After 100IM (Photo Creds: Hana)
The 3rd and final day, I had to swim 100m Breaststroke and 200m IM, I was seeded 3rd for breaststroke and 4th for IM. I was expecting to do 200m IM the best compared to 100m breaststroke, since last year in Jordan I placed 3rd place in the event. In the 100m breaststroke prelims, I had dropped down to 5th place and been 2 seconds behind 4th place which made me really depressed because I wanted to get a medal before the prelims even started. So, before going into the race I was trying to get my mind all calm and focused, I went to a place away from the team and had a small meditation time just before the finals. I ended up coming third and improving my prelims time by 1.67 secs. For the 200m IM, I didn’t do well at all as I messed up by going to fast on the first 50m fly so I became tired and ended up placing 7th. In the last event of the tournament, the 4x100m free relay, we were placed in the fastest heat and seeded first. I had to start the race, Jack second, Karven third and then Ritheek anchor, we were leading in the second and third 100m but then Lincoln School’s anchor somehow caught up to Ritheek on the last lap and beat us by milliseconds. We ended up coming second place and our entire 15-19 boys relay team was all in tears.
4x50m Medley relay (photo creds: Hana)