Rawls Has Big Swims at FLAGS
Rawls Has Big Swims at FLAGS
This past weekend, CVST’s Fitz Rawls (12) participated in an epoch FLAGS (Florida Swimming Age Group Championships) meet that will go down in history. The Florida Age Group Swimming Championships formerly known as Junior Olympics brought over 800 of Florida’s top 14 & Under swimmers to the YMCA Aquatic Center in Orlando where they proceeded to tear up the pool and rewrite the record books. The 13-14 year old girls led the way with four different girls producing 9 Olympic Trials Standards and 7 meet records. Two other girls swam to Senior National Standards. In three events swimming an Olympic Trials Cut was only good for second place. In the 1500 Free, which for the women is a non Olympic event, a Senior National time standard was good for second place and in the 400 IM a Senior National Cut placed third. To put things in perspective, a 13-14 year old boy does not physically compare to a 24 year old man, but a 13-14 girl has a shot at competing with a grown woman. Overall, Olympic trial cuts are rare, years apart at the Junior Olympic level. The last time an Olympic Trials cut placed second was 1996 when Brielle Bovee out touched future Olympian Jenna Street in the 13-14 girls 100m Breast. In all age-groups twenty eight swimmers surpassed previous meet records. Swimming in Fitz’s age group, Matthew Hirschberger led all 11&12 boys and all swimmers in the meet setting national records in the 200, 400, and 800m Freestyles.
On the first day of action with all of the fast swimming going on around him, Fitz swam into action going a best time in his 100 backstroke and then dropped over 40 seconds in his 800 freestyle moving up 8 places to score in the 12the place spot. On his second day Fitz swam to best times in his 200 freestyle and 50 backstroke. On Saturday, day 3, Fitz swam his 400 freestyle, dropping 9 seconds. Staying to watch finals Fitz saw a new national record in his age group and just missed making the consolation finals as the second alternate. On Sunday the final day of a long meet, Fitz swam the 200 IM just missing a personal best by two tenths of a second. Overall Fitz swam to five out of six best times and dropped over 52 seconds in a very fast and memorable meet for the ages.
Way to go Fitz and keep up the great swimming!
