By Steve Betts, Aquatics Director
Despite restrictions due to COVID, four WAISAL schools participated in a virtual swimming competition held November 15-19. Schools competed in the MS and HS divisions, timing swimmers in races conducted in their own school facilities and sending the results to LCS for tabulation and overall results. The purpose of the virtual WAISAL was to keep swimmers motivated, give them a purpose to continue training, and have a competition that would help them compare their results with the swimmers at other WAISAL schools.
Four of our WAISAL schools took part, with well over 100 participants from Lincoln Community School, American International School of Lagos, International School of Dakar, and International Community School of Abidjan. Emphasis was on participation and improvement and not on team scores, but it can be noted that our LCS swimmers finished on top in 10 out of 24 individual events and our relay teams finished first in all of the eight relay events! Yes, our swimmers have been quite dedicated this fall, and despite limited training time we have seen three new school records set: Alison Duffield has broken the 15-Over Girls' records in the 50- and 100-Meter Butterfly, and Thea Sivan set a new LCS record in the 11-12 Girls 400 Freestyle.
The competition attracted quite a bit of attention here on campus, with some great organization provided by Ms. Maria Oram along with lively announcing and uptempo music from "The Golden Throat of LCS Swimming", Mr. Troy Duffield. It was great to finally be able to conduct a safe and exciting event on campus.Thanks to all of our parent volunteers who helped time, announce, organize the swimmers, and do all of the behind-the-scenes work that is necessary to put on a swim meet! The more we do together, the more we achieve.
