Swim Carnival

Things are coming to something of a culmination as far as the school year goes. The other day it was the end-of-year swim carnival for Year Ones, which involves a morning at the school pool, with a hundred and twenty kids swimming in a variety of events and at least that many parents and siblings observing. They should have warned me that I needed my ear protectors for the acoustic levels were challenging and somewhat enthusiastic.

It was a cloudy morning - initially - and Eloise rode to school in her swimming gear and we decamped to the pool as soon as we got to school. Pretty soon things got underway with the Freestyle events.

Events unfolded as follows: for each event an "Elite" event was held where kids who were selected by some means or other - some classes had time trials, others had kids who were already accomplished and members of the swim club - and then the remainder of the children did their thing in rapid-fire races.

Although Eloise isn't a bad swimmer there are several kids who are really very good in her class. One in particular, Lucy, is quite an amazing swimmer, and won every single race in every single stroke. Not only that but she broke every single record there was to break. Quite phenomenal. I don't recall the exact timings, but she completed a 25m freestyle in less that some small number of seconds and left the rest for dust.

Eloise's race came around. At swim school she'd just about got the freestyle looking good the previous week, keeping her body reasonably straight and her arms were getting less windmill-like. The only fly in the ointment really was that she'd lost her goggles and her hat somewhere between, well, somewhere and there. I procured some goggles on a temporary basis; she scored a free hat. Winner.

You can see the events as they unfolded. You'll notice the pause at the finish, where she thinks she's reached the end but hasn't. That's what 2nd place turning to 3rd place looks like. That's silver turning into bronze.

Anyway she did creditable on the backstroke, 4th place of 6, and skipped the breast stroke and the butterfly. They did request that only kids who could actually do the butterfly try it. Frankly I was kind of looking forward to the 25m flail.

Whilst all this was happening the sun came out and my skin turned pink.