Intro to Nitro
Cedar Park: Mackenzie Huang & Amrith Akshintala – Amrith always shows up to practice ready to work. He is constantly bettering himself as a swimmer. This past week Amrith impressed the coaches with great streamlines, good backstroke technique, and encouraging his teammates. Great job Amrith, keep up the good work! Mackenzie has consistently been a lane leader in her group. Mackenzie always makes sure to leave the wall in streamline with underwater dolphin kicks. This week as we reviewed backstroke, the coaches called on her many times to demonstrate long backstroke arms, good body positioning, and fast kicking. She may not be the tallest swimmer in intro, but she swam this week as though she was a giant! Way to work Mackenzie! – Coach Hannah, Coach Claire, and Coach Sam
Bee Cave: Nitika Mohnot and Aman Sulaiman
Nitika and Aman worked hard the past two weeks to really improve their breaststroke skills. Nitika showed patience and strength has we worked on using our kick to glide through the water. Aman did a splendid job focusing on keeping his legs still and head down during the glide of the stroke. Both swimmers come prepared ready to listen/learn and work hard at practice. Their dedication has shown greatly by their progress in the water. Thank you for sharing your love of swimming with me. –Coach Raven
Bronze
Cedar Park: Iris Wang – Iris has made the transition from Intro to Bronze look easy. Although she may be quiet at practice, she is always listening, eager to get better. This week, she tackled backstroke flipturns with ease, nailing them time after time. Then, at the swim meet, not only did she post great times in all 5 events, she swam the 200 breaststroke! That’s a long, tough event, but Iris looked great the whole way through. The coaches were really impressed. Keep it up Iris! – Coach Adam
Bee Cave: Luis Rodriguez – We talk about how important it is for each swimmer to get involved in swim meets, the Sanctioned USA meets, these meets are the test to check and see if the strokes pass muster! Under the watchful eye of the USA Officials, can you say that you are that fast, no cutting corners, no extra fly kick here or there, no one hand touch just to stay in front of your buddy in the lane next to you, but a true test of your focus and training. I watched Luis do just that this weekend, 8 years old, 45.81 in the 50 free, 52.37 in the 50 back, 1:44.83 in the 100 free, and 1:11.12 in the 50 breast, not to bad for your first ever Sanctioned Long Course meet, especially since he only practices in the short course pool three times a week. So if someone asks do you think Luis is training hard all I have to do is point to his times and say, “What do you think?” Keep your eyes open for this young man in future Nitro meets! Great Job young man! – Coach Chuck
Technique & Fitness
Cedar Park: Kinsey Hallam and Champ Mayo – Kinsey is always the first in the pool, the first to ask questions, the first to encourage others, the first to help fellow swimmers with assistance. She is really a great presence at the pool and brings so much positive attitude to the pool. In addition to her there is Champ. Talk about harnessing energy. Champ is always the first to come up and ask what are we doing today. I love his mental planning ahead. Unfortunately Champ will be leaving our program soon and we wish him and his family the best and hope he will continue his future swimming endeavors. Great job you two thanks for being a part of NITRO Swimming and we’ll see you at the pool. – Coach Steve
Bee Cave: Kiera Morgan – Kiera was one of several T&F swimmers who swim in the 2016 ST NTRO July Sprints meet over the weekend. While I was impressed with all of the T&F kiddos who swam, Kiera really impressed me! She swam five events and did such a great job! She swam lights out and shattered her seed times! She has improved so much since joining Nitro, and I’m looking forward to seeing her continue to grow as a swimmer! Great job, Kiera! – Coach Peter
Silver
Cedar Park: Tristan Chang – Every day you surprise me with what you can do. Recently you have shown me you are capable of completing a set when you may think it is too tough and I have seen you battle through and finish strong. After the set is over with you have a smile on your face knowing that you did something you thought you couldn’t. You are gaining confidence every time you get into the pool. Keep up the excellent work and continue to challenge yourself. – Coach Ben
Bee Cave: Allie Dunn – Allie did an incredible job at the July Sprints meet at Nitro this past weekend! She swam the 50 and 100 butterfly, and maintained strong strokes throughout the entire race. She had a race plan going into each event which she followed exactly. I can always tell that she is focusing on fixing her strokes during practice and then using what she has learned in races. Congratulations, Allie! – Coach Lianne
Advanced Silver
Cedar Park: Kylie Farris – Kylie loves to go fast. She is always trying to push herself and is often leading the group on speed sets. Kylie is one of several AS athletes to participated in the meet this past Saturday and she did fantastic. She achieved B cuts in all events, including some 200s – and even knocking on the door towards some BB cuts. Keep up the hard work, Kylie! – Coach Alex
Bee Cave: Aubrey McLaughlin – And without discussion, the Swimmer of the Week goes to Aubrey McLaughlin. With just nine years old, this amazing kiddo knows what “hard work always pays off” exactly means. Her determination and discipline is the best combination to achieve whatever goals she sets on a daily basis. The work done on this past Saturday at the Nitro meet was the best example of what I’m saying. With five events on schedule, and one of them the 200FLY (incredible swim on this event and the only 10 and under swimming it), she ended her daily work with best life times on each event, plus some A, BB and B times for her swimming records. I’m extremely happy to have the opportunity to be your coach. Keep it up Aubrey, a promising future is waiting for you! Good job! FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS!!!! SI SI SI!!!! – Coach Felix
Gold
Cedar Park: Ivan Leong – Ivan found the transition to Gold tough at first, as the longer and harder practices were tiring and a little intimidating. Over the course of the summer, though, he has settled in to the group really well. His strokes are getting stronger every week, and he is gaining confidence. This past weekend at the swim meet, Ivan achieved an A time standard in the 50 breast, and was close in a couple of other events. Way to go Ivan! – Coach Adam
Bee Cave: Sasha Dauletau – Sasha is such a little athlete. All of her strokes are beautiful and she is starting to fall in love with the sport more and more. I am excited that she will be participating at TAGS this upcoming weekend, as she finally got to race at Nitro’s July Sprints and blew me and the other coaches away. I am very excited to see what she does in the future and hopefully she will continue to work hard in and out of the water. – Coach Allison