TAS Swimvitational: Post-Meet Overview

The pool water splashes endlessly as warm-ups begin in the Taipei American School’s pool on the morning of Saturday, November 21st. AISG’s small team of eight leaps in the moment the clock reads 7:10 am, the swimmers excited and nervous for the massive meet.

Over fifteen different teams and clubs were invited to the Taipei American School Tigershark Swimvitational from November 20th to November 22nd. Schools we compete against in APAC, such as Concordia, SASPD, and ISB attended, and teams from other places came as well, one from as far away as Oregon!

By far, AISG had the smallest team, only bringing eight members, while other schools brought as many as fifty swimmers. The eight students were Nino Lee (11), Jake Kim (11), Bryan Hu (11), Hannah Eng (11), Christina Kim (10), Amy Choi (10), Emma Rigassio (10), and Sophie Elliott (9).

The competition hosted a wide range of ages. Children as young as six years old swam, while others as old as eighteen competed as well, though obviously not in the same age groups or heats.

While AISG didn’t have any overall wins, quite a few points were earned for having times in the top twenty of their age groups, and four people won their heats in different events. Hannah Eng won her heat for the 100 meter breaststroke event, Nino Lee won his heat for the 50 meter freestyle, and Bryan Hu, Sophie Elliott, and Jake Kim all won their heats for the 100 meter freestyle event.

However, even if they didn’t win their event, every single member of the team that travelled to Taipei for this meet improved their times, as well as their bonds with each other.

The team’s next meet is on Tuesday, December 8th at the Guangzhou PE University in TianHe where they practice every week. There will be a much higher turnout from our school for this meet, and hopefully, they will return with improved times and maybe even some first-place wins.