Magazine Jul/Aug 2016

I NDIAN OCEAN ALL STARS CHALLENGE 2016

Congratulations to all swimmers who competed at the Indian Ocean All Stars Challenge that was held at the HBF Stadium in Perth, WA from March 26 – 27! More than 370 athletes from Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines participated in the competition. We had 6 swimmers representing The Club under Team Asia in our inaugural appearance at the swim meet. Despite the extraordinary level of competition and the cold racing environment, all our swimmers certainly did us very proud! Our team achieved a total of 3 Gold and 4 Silver medals in the individual events as well as 1 Gold and 1 Bronze Medal in the relay events. Special mention goes to Maile Sullivan for winning the Overall Trophy for Girls 8 & Under! This is a fantastic achievement for the team considering that this swim meet was right on the back of multiple weekend races over the last few months – well done swimmers! Team Members: Sofia Bucey, Megan Eyring, Sophia Hamlen, Isabella Hamlen, Chloe Ng and Maile Sullivan Our trip to the Indian Ocean All Stars Challenge in Perth offered something for the whole family. Our daughter, Megan, had a great opportunity to swim in an international competition. She and her TAC team members bonded well and operated more independently as a team than they would have in Singapore. For such a small number of swimmers, our racers were very competitive, which was great for their confidence! We managed to have time together as a family whilst also meeting and enjoying time with other families from The American Club. - James Eyring (Megan’s dad) The Indian Ocean All Stars Swim Challenge was another great learning experience for me as an age group swimmer; because I travel a lot with my school team for international school swim meets, traveling with a swim club as an individual swimmer to an open competition really changed my perspective on the swimming world. Coach Shan was able to showme new tactics for long distance events and gave me important and useful feedback after each race. This swimmeet is like no other I've been to before, and I really hope to be able to participate in this event again next year. - Izzy Hamlen (Swimmer) Our swimmers and parents share their thoughts about The Club’s first overseas meet:

I enjoyed making new friends from both the Aussie Team and Team Asia. The Camp on the first day was a lot of fun! Before the races started, we did a march-in which was fun and exciting. I especially enjoyed the relays and hanging out with my family in Australia. Thank you Coach Shan for taking us to Australia, I had a really good time!! - Maile Sullivan (Swimmer) This race prompted us to make our first family trip down to Western Australia and we all had a great time! It was very exciting to watch Maile swim in her first international swim meet. We especially enjoyed the opportunity to get to know the other American Club families who were there. Thanks to Coach Shan for organizing this opportunity for Maile to participate in such a great event! - Marcella Sullivan (Maile’s mom)

48 THE AMERICAN CLUB JUL / AUG 2016