SAISA is an organization that includes 10 IB schools from the Indian subcontinent region to compete in various sports and activities. and in their first season, I took part in their swimming competition in Chennai which sadly only 7 schools were allowed to take part in due to border restrictions. You take part in events, if its Preliminary you have a chnace to make it into A Finals (1-6th place) or B finals (7-12th place) to get points. Events that arent prelimanry you get points from (1-12th place). Want to know how me and the team did? Well, only one way to find out.

 

On the first meet day, I had my 50m free / 200 breast / 200 Free Relay.  I had done the 50 free multiple times and my personal best was 29 seconds in a long course pool (50m). This was the first time I was swimming 50 free on a short course pool (25m) and just as I thought the turn slowed me down for both my preliminary and B final I had gotten 30 seconds. This meant I had to work on my turns a bit more if I wanted to compete in SAISA since most of the pools are short courses and having a good turn can improve your time.  Then I was up for 200m  breast it was my first time doing any events that were more than 100m since I don’t like distance sprints. I went into the race with good composure and thought that by the end of my race, I had swum and gotten a good 5th place to win points. Unfortunately,  I was too focused on my turn and I had forgotten to touch the walls with both hands two times so I was disqualified for my upcoming races i had something to keep in mind and improve on.  Next up was the 200M Free relay and with the whole team’s efforts we came 4th and that in itself was a huge improvement from last year so I was stoked.

Moving on to day two my first event was the 100m Fly, this was my first time swimming this in my life and on top of that I consider flying to be my worst stroke so while on that block I just thought to myself “This is going to be the end of me”, but as I was swimming and saw Olau one of my peers right next to me I had the motivation to push forward and we both ended on the same time me being a few milliseconds behind and in the end whether it was my stoke or not I ended up getting 1 point for the team better than nothing right? Up next was the 100m IM something I was doing for the first time again which I put in all my effort for and ended up getting another point. My final race for the day was the 200m Medley relay which I was swimming 50m breaststroke since it was my best stroke. We ended up coming 4th and for my 50m split time, I had gone 39s which was a new PB  for me compared to 41s a year ago.

 

 

 

Finally the last day and my most dreadful day I had 3 events back to back and 1 more final race and then straight after that a 4 x 100m free relay. Want to know what made it even worse? Two of them were 200m and I despise long-distance sprints. I started with the 200m  Free, which once more is something I haven’t swam for a race before. I had a goal of swimming it as best as I could but also saving my energy since I knew with my Seed timings I would not place for points.  Next, I was pushed straight into 100m breaststroke. One of my best events so I got up on the block dove in gave it my best and ended up going 1:27.34 beating my PB. It was also my first event where I made it into A finals scraping by the edge of a cliff with 2 other swimmers also

getting 1:27 but a few milliseconds behind.  Splashing straight into my next event was the 200m IM which if you’re not surprised was another first. I gave it all the energy I had left and ended up with 2 more points for the team. After lunch where I had a little bit of a break I went straight into the 100m Breaststroke Finals. I was worried that I was so worn out that I would underperform my previous time, nevertheless, I gave it my all and what do you know? I had beaten my PB again and gone 1:25.81 I was overwhelmed with joy as well as a stomach cramp. Now it was time for the grand finale the 400m Free relay I was already drop-dead exhausted but I pushed through with everything I had and we ended up getting on the podium with 6th place which to us was a miracle.

That marks the end of my journey swimming SAISA for the first time. I ended up getting 77 points in total with relays which was a major part of the 15-19 boys’ points and 8% of the points overall. Even though we placed last I still learned a lot of things like how to push through with all of my events since it was the first time I had done so many (that is 11 in total) and had opportunities to do more things which without this meet I wouldn’t have known I was decent at.  I also made friends along the way and at the end we had a night to ourselves where we ate and had fun.