Canyons swimmers shine at Futures
Swim: Kevin Childs takes first in the 200-meter backstroke
It has been a busy summer for Canyons Aquatics as multiple swimmers took part in the USA Swimming Futures Championships Aug. 1- 4 and came away with some fantastic results.
Sending 19 elite swimmers to Mt. Hood, Oregon for Futures Championships, the loaded Canyons Aquatics, led by coach Kevin Neilsen, finished ninth overall as a team.
“Well in practice, we have so much fun, but we work so hard,’ said Canyons Aquatics and Valencia High School swimmer Izabella Adame. “Coach Kevin is the best coach that I’ve ever had and he has always stuck with me through thick and thin, when I had my many mental breakdowns or when I had a bad race. He always gives us positive feedback and is always super-positive to us. I think that positivity that coach Kevin has really helps us push through and make our team proud.”
Kevin Childs pulled out the only first-place finish of the day in the men’s 200-meter backstroke to go along with a sixth-place finish in the men’s 100-meter butterfly.
Childs was also part of the fifth-place men’s 800-meter freestyle relay team along with Cade Brower, Dylane Parente and Jonathan Quick.
The men’s 400-meter medley relay team
finished third for a podium finish.
The women’s 800-meter relay team (Reagan Nibarger, Viviana Raker, Riley Botton and Eleanor Horst) finished seventh.
Nibarger added a season’s best time in the women’s 50-meter freestyle in 27.10 seconds and took eighth place in the women’s 100-meter freestyle.
Matching his teammate, Parente also recorded a personal best time in the men’s 100-meter freestyle and qualified for the Winter Junior Nationals in the men’s 50-meter freestyle. Kyle Brill will join Parente qualifying for the meet in the men’s 200-meter backstroke.
Maxine Catig and Horst each had strong races in the 100-meter backstroke and the 400-meter freestyle, respectively.
Izabella Adame swam to a third-place finish in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke, then had to quickly hop on a flight for her first USA Swimming Junior National Championship held on the campus of Stanford University on Aug. 6.
“The atmosphere at Junior Nationals was definitely kind of scary, I guess because that was my first junior nationals that I went to for summer Junior Nationals,” Adame said. “I was super excited and I didn’t feel nervous, I felt excited to race because before that I was up in Oregon for Futures and I had to fly down to San Francisco really quickly so I can race at Junior Nationals and be prepared.”
Dedicating the race to her grandfather, who passed away in February of stage four terminal cancer, Adame swam a 1:10.84 in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke and qualified for the 2020 USA Swimming Olympics tryout in June 2020 in Omaha, Nebraska.
“After my race, I pictured him in my head with a huge smile and being proud of me and saying that he knew that I could do it and he would be calling everybody that he knew,” Adame said. “It was super surreal. When I went to my mom she started crying and then I started crying because I’ve worked so hard for this and I feel so accomplished and happy with my result.”