PCS Christmas Cracker 2024
PCS Christmas Cracker 2024
December 6th – 8th, 2024
Victoria, BC
(Written by Coach Francois Coezter)
This past weekend OSC sent 16 young and energetic swimmers down to Victoria, BC for the Annual Christmas Cracker Invitational. The meet brings some of the fastest swimmers from Albert and British Columbia together to race in heats and finals competition that runs over 3 days.
The swimmers did exceptionally well swimming a total of 106 best times with a couple of swimmers going 100% best times including faster times in finals: Angela Kinniburg, Sebastien Valera and Roya Wong! Congratulations swimmers, it was an exceptional performance by all.
The Christmas Cracker is also known for its Team Cheer Off where teams get to go head to head with cheers and get judged on creativity, loudness and Christmas spirit. Unfortunately, OSC came up short this year but they created an OSC inspired version of “Deck the Halls” and I encourage parents to ask the swimmers of this amazing version. With some practice over the next 12 months, I am sure we can win it next year. Another fun part of the Christmas Cracker is the Blue Toque Swimmers of the Day awards. These toques are provided to every visiting club to award their best swim of the day. This year OSC had so many amazing swims every day it was hard to choose, but the winners are:
Day 1 - Roya Wong for doing her first 1500m Freestyle event, winning her heat and smashing her entry time going 19:19.77 and inching ever so close to her first ever Champs time. Roya’s swim was so good she also split best time for her 400 Free and 800 Free in the same race. Congratulations Roya!
Day 2 - Samuel Leyland for the day rolling in the 100m Breaststroke getting the first of many Champs qualifying swims on the day. Samuel dropped over 15 seconds to go 1:17.42 earning himself a new Champs qualifying time and also earning a spot in the boys 13-14 B-final. Congratulations Samuel!
Day 3 - Tatiana Cockwell, our youngest swimmer on the team in Victoria came into Sunday’s events blazing fast. She placed 2nd in the 100m Backstroke dropping 6 seconds and then dropping another second in the final and retaining her 2nd place ranking. Congratulations Tatiana!
NEW QUALIFIERS ALERT!!
OSC got some new swimmers qualified for Provincial Championships in March 2025. First up was Jamie de Kock who battled hard in the 200 Backstroke prelims and finals to get his 14 year old AND 15 year old Champs time going 2:23.85 in Finals (2:25.52 prelims) and winning the B-Final. He followed this up on Sunday with new Champs times (again for both 14 and 15 year old) in the 100 Backstroke going 1:07.46. Fantastic racing Jamie and well deserved!
Our next brand new Champs qualifier is Aila Mirza in her 200 Backstroke with a time of 2:32.42. Aila has been gunning down that Champs time and on Sunday night in the finals she focused all her training and effort into the performance of a lifetime dropping over 4 seconds to achieve the needed standard. Great job Aila!
As mentioned earlier, our next qualifier is Samuel Leyland in the 100m Breaststroke. His time of 1:17.42 not only earned him the Swimmer of the Day toque but also a new Champs time. Great job Samuel!
Overall the coaches and chaperones are incredibly proud of this young squad who represented OSC with pride and some amazing swims in the pool. The amount of best times, qualifiers and finals swimmers really showed how every swimmer’s hard work is coming together at the perfect time of the year.
TEAM TRAVEL ADVENTURE
This year, for the first time, OSC had some down time on the Monday before flying home. And instead of staring at their phones and TV for hours, we decided to take the swimmers to WILDPLAY Adventures which is an outdoor adventure park with ziplines, slides, swings and more! What was supposed to be 2 hours of keeping the kids entertained while we waited for our flight turned into a masterclass of overcoming fears, getting outside your comfort zone and proving self bravery in each swimmer. And of course, TONS of laughter, smiles and overall fun. Here are a few pictures of the adventure and I am pretty sure this might have to become a new tradition!