On Tuesday, 03.10.23, the Junior Swim Tournament was held at NIS, in which we successfully participated with girls and boys in age groups 6-11. True to the motto: school is important, but swimming is more important. The sun was shining, in the background you could see green rice fields and Chiang Mai’s magnificent local mountain. The best conditions.
All participants made an incredible effort, gave their best and were able to celebrate great results in the end. Swimming under tournament conditions is not that easy. Starting with the nervousness not to make a false start when it was said: “Swimmers, take your mark” and the long whistle sounded or to strike with the right hand at the end of the lane. Here the rules were very strict. More than 300 swimmers cavorted on the school grounds of NIS. The students therefore had to exercise a little patience until it was their turn. In the meantime, a small CDSC fan club formed on the stairs to cheer on the swimmers. Some also amused themselves with card games in the recreation room.
Now to the results: We all had fun and a nice injury-free day together. That is already a very big success. Caution. Sarcasm follows: Also, no one drowned.
Arwen and Similan were both 4th in the 25m freestyle in their age groups. Arwen also succeeded in the strenuous discipline Butterfly 25m. Similan made it to the 5th place in this discipline. Arwen topped her performance in the 25m breaststroke with a great third place. Ben won the silver medal in the 25m breaststroke. Later, he came close to 1st in his race in 50m Freestyle, finishing a respectable 6th overall. Varianda finished 4th in the 25m breaststroke, behind her was Carys with 5th place, Ayden grabbed 4th place and Similan 2nd with silver. CDSC rules!
The girls achieved an absolute respectable success in the 100m Medley Relay: 4 swimmers: Emma, Carys, Varianda and Arwen! 4 disciplines! Backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle! The 4 of them actually made it to the podium and won bronze. In their race itself they even became first. In the overall standings, only a few seconds were missing.
Swimming ahead of all was one person: Emma Weiss. The 5th grader won gold in 3 disciplines: 25m freestyle, 25m backstroke and 25m butterfly. In the end, this even brought her the overall victory of the girls of all 12 schools.
Congratulations on this terrific achievement. All these partial successes add up to a great whole. Everyone contributed with their performance to the fact that we as CDSC ended up in 5th place, although some schools sent three times as many students to the competition.
Other swimmers who contributed to this success were: Jara, Jennyfer, Iona, Josia, Lennis, Rosa and Zoe. Thank you for your participation and keep up the good work and swimming.
Lastly, I would like to sincerely thank the coaches who accompanied us and did an excellent job: Mrs. Päs and Mrs. Fox. They took care that all swimmers arrived on time, that the atmosphere was right and that the day went smoothly.
Patrick Kim-Türk
See you again next year when it’s to say again “Get ready, take your mark, GO!”
PS: CDSC: From now on, the “S” clearly stands for super swimmer, too!
Keep swimming!
