APAC Swimming

On Wednesday, January 27th, the six female and eight male members of the AISG swim team departed from Guangzhou and headed to Hong Kong, ready to compete in the annual APAC Swimming competition. This year, it was hosted at the Hong Kong International School (HKIS).

Considering the team only practices for around an hour, three times a week, the swimmers did incredibly well. Each athlete posted at least one personal best time over the course of the three days, in some cases dropping more than ten seconds.

Despite all these massive improvements, only one girl qualified for finals. In APAC Swimming, the mornings are when prelims are held, meaning that everybody swims. But, in the afternoon, the top twelve swimmers from each event compete again in finals for first through twelfth place.

The one and only swimmer who qualified for finals from AISG was current 11th grader Hannah Eng in the 200 freestyle event. Her prelim race was outstanding, and her final race was excellent as well. Overall, in the girl’s 200 free, Hannah placed 12th, earning our team one point.

Hannah taking her mark before her 200 meter freestyle final

At last, when the swim meet came to a close, the girl’s team finished in ninth place out of ten, since the Western Academy of Beijing (WAB) had no girls who made finals. However, the boy’s team finished last, with none of them making finals.

Although AISG didn’t come out on top, each swimmer had numerous individual victories that made the swim meet about much more than earning first place. Hopefully, the team remembers this for their next APAC at Seoul Foreign School (SFS).