Eight TNT swimmers traveled to Pleasanton over the last weekend of March to compete at the 2016 Speedo Short Course Far Western Championships which plays host to many of the top age group swimmers from within California, and also attracts participation from across the western United States. This year teams traveled from Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and the state of Washington to compete at this prestigious meet.
Our team’s highest finisher was Danielle Ablright, competing at the bottom of the 13-14 age division, and finishing 7th in the 1650 freestyle with a time of 17:53.52. She also a championship final with a 9th place finish in the 500 freestyle with her time of 5:08.74 which was a two-time improvement after swimming her lifetime best of 5:09.26 in the preliminary heats. Both events were exemplary performances considering that Danielle competed as a 13-year old in the 13-14 division.
Alexa Wong was another qualifier who competed at the bottom of the age division, and at age 9 her highest finish was 26th in the 100 fly (1:13.23). Following Danielle, our next highest finisher was Ava Olson who finished 18th in the 100 fly (1:11.80) for the 10-under division, and she was followed by Porterville’s Diego Gutierrez who finished 19th in the 100 breaststroke (1:11.84) for the 11-12 division. Peyton Costa was our next highest finisher at 21st, and he did this both the 11-12 girls 400 IM (4:58.01) and 1650 free (19:02.80) events. Visalia’s Janessa Bringe finished 23rd in the 13-14 division of the 1000 freestyle (11:15.97) event, while her training partner, Layla Flores, finished 33rd in the 11-12 50 breaststroke (34.16). Hanford’s Rylee Lord made her first appearance at Far Westerns, and finished 41st in the 11-12 girls 100 free (59.37).