JACKSONVILLE, Florida, March 12. NEXT month, the Bolles School Sharks will be hosting an exciting sprint-based meet called the JAX 50, in partnership with SwimmingWorld.TV. The meet, which will feature only the 50-yard freestyle, already has commitments from superstars like Matt Grevers, Ryan Lochte, Cullen Jones, Amanda Weir, Caitlin Geary, Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace, George Bovell, Nicolas Nilo and Arlene Semeco.
SwimmingWorld.TV Pre-Meet Coverage
SwimmingWorld.TV Meet Coverage
The JAX 50, which is part professional sprinter heaven and part charity, is the brainchild of the Bolles School Sharks. The team created the meet in part to help create an exciting professional atmosphere, but also to help with cancer treatment for former Bolles swimmer Seun Adebiyi.
Adebiyi is fighting lymphoblastic lymphoma and stem-cell leukemia. Adebiyi, who graduated from Yale law school last spring just before being diagnosed with cancer, needs a bone marrow transplant and is trying to get 10,000 people in the United States to register as potential bone marrow donors. This swim meet will be a big effort towards getting hundreds more people registered by getting them to submit to a cheek swab to find if they may potentially be a bone marrow transplant match. Proceeds from the meet will go towards paying for the test that determines if people are a bone marrow transplant match.
The JAX 50 also provides a chance for kids to compete in a meet with some of the top swimmers in the world.
This is how the meet will work:
In the Saturday preliminary session, swimmers who sign up will race against a full heat of swimmers their own age. Everyone will swim the 50 freestyle. Trophies will be awarded to the Top 3 swimmers in each age group. The fastest two overall boys and fastest two overall girls who swim in the morning session will qualify to swim with the pros in the evening session, which will be unlike any swim meet most people have been to.
The top 16 swimmers, pros and qualifying non-pros, will be paired into teams of one boy and one girl. The boys will swim only boys and the girls will swim only girls. It will be a round robin tournament, so imagine the brackets we always see for the NCAA college basketball tournament.
Each heat will consist of only two people, racing in a head-to-head grudge match to move on to the next round and win the championship title. The blocks of heats will go off every 10-15 minutes as the swimmers advance, culminating with the championship races (one for boys and one for girls) at the end of the session. The swimmers, boys and girls, will earn points in relation with the place in which they finish. The team with the most points will split the grand prize.
Prize money has been set up for the top eight teams:
1st place = $3,000.00
2nd place= $2,500.00
3rd place= $1,500.00
4th place= $1,000.00
5th place= $800.00
6th place = $600.00
7th place = $400.00
8th place = $200.00
The day after racing, Sunday, the pros will host a clinic for swimmers who want to get tips from them, hear their stories, and ask questions. It will be a rare chance to have your swimmers interact with some of the fastest people ever to be a part of this sport. It will truly be a unique experience where many kids won't be able to get anywhere else.
For more information, visit PlanetSwim.org.