Intro to Nitro
Cedar Park: David Le – Every day David comes to practice with a huge smile and ready to swim. No matter what we are working on David always puts 100% effort into it. This past week David led the Intro group in how to do a perfect streamline and underwaters every single time. David has shown us that he is a great leader both in and out of the pool. – Coach Hannah
Bee Cave: Yimeng Peng – Yimeng was a leader this week as we worked on backstroke. He made huge improvements in his underwaters pushing off the wall in a tight streamline each time. Yimeng demonstrated how to rotate side-to-side getting one shoulder out of the water while maintaining a still head position. I always look forward to Yimeng’s daily trivia challenge at the end of practice. Thank you for all your hard work and fun spirit, Yimeng! – Coach Raven
Bronze
Cedar Park: Aanya Singh – Aanya has been a superstar in the Bronze group for a while, so this award has been coming for some time. Aanya is always someone you can count on to pay attention, focus really well on what she is doing, and make any changes the coaches throw her way. This past week, she worked tirelessly on her freestyle breathing position and really impressed during our flip turn work. Way to go Aanya! – Coach Adam
Bee Cave: James Olden – Fantastic week for James, the streamlines were off the charts, it was a backstroke focus week where we pushed some hard 50s on interval, James was the standout swimming faster than 50 seconds on several of the 50s. He did all the right things, clean tight streamlines, smooth breakouts, good hand speed over the water, constant kick, while focusing on clearing the red zone off every turn. James did a great job pushing through the pain and came out the other side with a big smile! Great Job young man! – Coach Chuck
Technique & Fitness
Cedar Park: Courtney Keeney & Peyton Gilliland – Both of these swimmers really impressed us with their diving technique. Excellent job going through the hula hoops with finesse and grace. As well as really impressive freestyle keeping your strokes extended and being patient with your catch at the beginning of your pull. Great job you two thanks for being a part of NITRO and we’ll see you at the pool. – Coach Steve
Bee Cave: Ahantya Sharma – This week’s focus was underwaters, flip turns, and putting them both together. It can be difficult to do underwaters after a flip turn, and Ahantya was struggling a bit with this during the first part of practice but left doing some great streamline dolphin kicks after his flip turns. Improving his breath control and flip turn in general, Ahantya was an easy choice for SOW. Great job, Ahantya! – Coach Peter
Silver
Cedar Park: Diego Ortega – Congratulations Diego you have been chosen for swimmer of the week! This week you really stood out in the backstroke and breaststroke. In the backstroke you maintained a nice body line and steady head position. Your flip turns where looking much better, especially the underwater kicks you had coming off the walls. Transitioning to breaststroke, your did a great job holding your body in a long relaxed gliding position, allowing for an efficient stroke across the pool. Keep up the hard work Diego! – Coach Ben
Bee Cave: Natalie Yung – Natalie has worked hard every day since she joined Silver a couple of weeks ago, and she is improving fast! Her determination has been a huge asset for the Silver group she is in and has allowed her to pick up on ways to get better at swimming very easily. On Friday when we were racing underwater streamlines dolphin kick, she managed to drop her time by over two seconds in 25-yards underwater! Her attention to the details, whether it be in underwaters or her butterfly technique, is outstanding and I know will bring her great success in the pool. Way to go, Natalie! – Coach Lianne
Advanced Silver
Cedar Park: Timothy Guan – Timmy is truly one of a kind. Sometimes swimmers have an exceptional practice in which they’re giving it there all – I call this “being on fire.” Timmy is on fire every single day. He represented Nitro at the TXLA meet this past weekend and, as expected, performed extremely well. Timmy achieved his first ever AA cut in the 100 fly, barely missing his first individual TAGS cut as well (that’s for next time!). Pretty darn impressive for a nine-year-old! Keep up the great work, Tim. – Coach Alex
Bee Cave: Grace Koch – Grace is the kind of swimmer that enjoys every time she hits the water. Always giving the extra mile out of the water during dry land and even better in practice where there’s no place for excuses. You can notice that the water is Grace’s comfort zone. Great job this week during some 50’s Freestyle in which she crossed the pool in 29 seconds pushing from the wall. Remember, be better everyday by 1% is a great key to success. Stay FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS and keep it up!! Good job Grace!!! SI SI SI!!!! – Coach Felix
Gold
Cedar Park: Aiydan Schweizer – Aiydan had a great swim meet this past weekend and made a lot of changes within his races! He continued to step up to challenges and improved more and more throughout the meet. Way to go Aiydan! – Coach Jeremy & Coach Adam
Bee Cave: Catherine McCluskey – Catherine has been quite the trooper the past few weeks. She has been fighting a sickness, as well as attending UT swim camp, learning new skills, and all the while preparing to race in Houston this past weekend. She did a great job of pushing through and an even better job of being a great team mate and being the leader of the relay, as many of the girls had never swam a relay before. She took the initiative to show the others where to go and help them make their experience the best it could be, all the while she still wasn’t feeling too well. I am excited to starting training more and more long course as Catherine feels better and we get her ready to race in July! – Coach Allison