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Relay teams splash new record book
(by Tony Lange - July 21, 2010)
Relay teams splash new record book
By TONY LANGE
The singing of the Star-Spangled Banner and the sound of fireworks marked the start of the evening finals at the 41st annual Chagrin Valley Invitational Relays last Saturday. Earlier that day, more than 550 relay teams raced during the morning preliminaries in the eight-lane, 100-foot-long outdoor pool located on the Chagrin Falls High School campus.
Primarily for fun, the meet is designed to maximize swimmer participation and no scores are kept. Age-group relays, mixed-gender relays, family relays and open relays all contribute to the excitement and diversity of the daylong event. Overall, 600 swimmers from 15 area teams competed.
Kicking off the evening finals was the 8-and-under backstroke relay. Chardon's first-seeded team was seconds behind the lead going into the final leg of the relay, often referred to as the anchor position. Chardon's anchor, Anne Evans, 8, was able to pull off a come-from-behind victory.
"I'm going to catch up," said Evans, while recalling what was going through her mind as she pushed off from behind. Her coach, Matt Parrish, told her to "swim as fast as you can and don't look back," she said.
After the race, Evans and her teammates, Grace Klein, 8, Noel Rozic, 7, and Sarah Bennett, 8, were met by Parrish. He told them to practice good sportsmanship with their opponents.
"Did you shake their hands?" Parrish asked the triumphant foursome. "That's what classy people do. They shake hands."
That same group of girls also won the other two 8-and-under relays, the medley and freestyle.
However, it was the Chagrin Valley Recreation Center's team that captured the most gold medals of the evening finals, winning 13 of the 37 events. The host team entered 157 swimmers and 142 relay teams.
One of Chagrin Rec's winning relays was the medley for boys with ages adding up to 42. Going into the finals, the Chagrin Rec A and B teams had the two fastest times and raced each other in lanes four and five. Jaden Yon, 9, was on the team that won.
"It's just a friendly competition," said Yon, as he described what it was like to go head-to-head against his teammates on the B team. His winning teammates included Jason Quinn, 12, Joe Bistritz, 12, and Zach Hoover, 9. "They said, 'good job' to the other team."
Speaking of the friendly competition, many competitors have teammates who tattoo them with Sharpie markers for the meet. Team names and logos are drawn on one another and a common "eat my bubbles" statement is written across several swimmers' backs.
During the evening finals, swimmers are known to switch from their baggy practice suits to their high-end Speedo Fastskin or FS Pro suits, which often sell for as much as $300 and are only worn in the most competitive meets.
One of the swimmers who wore an FS Pro was Sophie Kocheff. She anchored the Chagrin Valley Athletic Club's mixed-gender backstroke relay with ages adding up to 48. After her teammates, Alyssa Mahle, 12, Billy Glime, 10, and Mike Jeromin, 13, gave her a lead, she pushed off for the final leg and never looked back. She touched the finish wall more than 10 seconds ahead of her nearest competitor.
"I just went fast. I didn't really think of what other swimmers were doing," Kocheff said. Her relay team set a record in that event.
New to the meet this year was an additional record book. It dates back to 2008, when the rule changed from relays with four dive starts to relays with two dive starts and two in-the-water push off starts. This was a product of a new state regulation that prohibits dives in less than 4 feet of water, which applies to the Chagrin Falls pool's shallow end. Thus, the new book is dubbed the "meet in water" records.
This year, 12 of the meet's events had meet in water record-breaking relay teams. Only one of which broke a record from the original record book that dates back to 1970.
The team that set the most records was Landerwood, which had its name stamped into the new book four times. Isabel Ergun, 10, Peter Moshier, 18, and Fellowes Thomas all swam on two of those record-breaking relay teams.
Another record-breaking relay took place in the family medley. Solon Recreation Center's Telljohann family shaved nearly 4.5 seconds off its preliminary time to win the race. It was one of five upsets during the meet, when the first seeded team got beat.
Matt Davis, who married Samantha Telljohann in April, competed on that winning team. Samantha's siblings, Dan and Jacqueline, explained how their dad used to swim the family relay with them, but Davis replaced him this year after becoming a member of the family. It was the first time they won gold.
"It was early," said Davis, about how his family relay dropped so much time. "I'm not a morning swimmer," he said, with sarcasm.
A well-know term in the meet vocabulary is "sandbagging." It is when relay team members know they are fast enough to make the finals and often cruise at a slower speed during the preliminaries to reserve energy or surprise their opponent with an upset.
However, with enough energy to play nine-holes of golf between the preliminaries and finals, Davis must have been going after the surprise strategy.
For some of the not-so-young swimmers, reserving energy is more important. Jonathan Emery, 43, was one of those swimmers who competed in the last event of the evening, which was a freestyle relay with a minimum age of 160.
"If you're going to ask an old geezer like me, we don't have as much energy as those kids," said Emery, as he described his feelings of exhilaration and tiredness after the race. "It makes me feel young again," he said and then paused, "for a while."
At 9 p.m., when the swimmers cleared the pool deck and the half-filled moon already was visible in the still blue sky, Mary Beth Wolfe, the meet and facility director felt relieved, she said. Her staff had been there since 5:30 a.m. and still had another hour of cleanup duties.
"We know what we have to do and do it," said Wolfe, who has directed the meet for four years now. "It's tradition in Chagrin. I used to swim it when I was a kid. I look forward to this meet all year long."
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