On Saturday 11th November the Samui sharks travelled to Thanyapura, Phuket for the second fixture of the Thanyapura open swim league.
After the Sharks had five debutant swimmers at TOSL #1 in September, they had a further four debutants at this event. Kirill Konovalov, Leonardo Hachanon, Platon Mychkin and Mischa Parra added to the ever growing Sharks squad. They all did the school proud, especially since their first ever time competing was in the 50 meter pool in front of a huge crowd.There were a number of impressive swims from the young Sharks and an impressive 7 school records were broken.
Butterfly
The Sharks had the daunting task of the 200 meter butterfly at the competition. This is the most difficult event that the Sharks will compete in all year, despite that two new school records were set, Seraphina Lees set a new record of 4:20.79 in the girls 9-10 age category and Paul Eric Larson-Drozd recorded a time of 3:44.5 in the boys 13-14 year olds, both of these swims are the first ever recorded in their age category for the school in competition. Tom Maestracci was the only swimmer to break a school record in the butterfly, he recorded a time 3:05.85, in what was probably the most impressive swim of the event.
Backstroke
Two records were broken in the 100 meter backstroke, Mek Athapaisal gained yet another school record with a time of 1:53.05 in the boys under 8 category and Tom Maestracci had another impressive swim of 1:21.82.
Breaststroke
There was only one record was broken in the 50 meter breaststroke, Taisiya Lavrenkova recorded a time of 52.75 in the girls 9-10 age category, well done Taisiya.
Freestyle
There was also only one record broken in the 50 meter Freestyle, it was Tom Maestracci getting another school record with a time of 31.03.
All the Sharks did extremely well and did the school proud. Tom, Mek and Taisiya are right up the top of their age categories, and have an excellent chance of a medal come June. We are still waiting for the official overall ranking from the organisers.
Coach Mark