SOUTH KOREA – What do you get when you put the excitement of an unblinking hare being chased by a fox, the unflinching focus of a cheetah chasing its first meal in a week, the sound of thunder from a Nebraska Plain’s storm, and a little water and well-trained swimmers at Yongsan International School of Seoul?
A perfect recipe for an exciting Middle School All-Stars’ Championship Swim Meet!
KAIAC swimmers did not disappoint as several swimmers shook the “record boards” and stamped new records, both KAIAC and Pool Records respectively.
The competition started with YISS’ A-Medley Relay lowering their Last Year’s KAIAC record by 4 seconds with outstanding swims from Kelly Yun, Jiyu Shin, Rebecca Kim, and Jeri Kim. The Seoul Foreign School boys Medley Relay came just short of the KAIAC Record with a time of 2:10.61.
Stepping into the individual events, Newcomer Yonje Rhee from Korea International School broke the league record in the 50 Free with a time of 28.88. On the Boys’ side, the unheralded YISS Swimmer, Justin Oh with a time of 28.94, broke the age group YISS Record, as well as a MS KAIAC record as fastest Boys 50m Freestyler.
Next, SFS boys Minjae Kim and Geffen Chang put on a race as they came in first and second in the 100IM with Minjae breaking the league record of 1:07.26.
Kelly Yun with Yongsan International School of Seoul made a statement by breaking last year’s 50m Backstroke record with a time of 35.57.
For the Boys 50 Back, Seoul International School’s Ian Lee finished first ahead of YISS’ Cy An and broke his own league record with a blistering 29.58 which looks to stand for a long time.
Rebecca Kim, also from YISS, wanted in on the action so she lowered last year’s KAIAC 50 Fly record (her own) with a time of 34.31 and now owns the second fastest time in YISS’ pool history in the 50 Fly Event.
Both SFS’ Emily Park and YISS’ Jiyu Shin raced it out with Emily finishing first in the 50m Breaststroke. Keep an eye on these two as they entertained the crowd to a great finish. On the boys side, Minjae Kim had finished ahead of Geonggi Suwon Int. School’s Nakazawa Hidemasa with a time of 32.61, which also broke the league record.
The Girls 100IM was an entertaining race as the lead had changed between Jeri Kim (YISS), Yonje Rhee (KISS), and Emily Park (SFS) with Yonje Rhee sneaking in the win with a time of 1:02.89. The boys 100IM was won by Ian Lee (SIS) with a close finish by Justin Oh and Sam Choi of YISS, in a league record time of 59.65.
With so many record-breaking individual swims, the meet concluded with Kelly Yun, Jiyu Shin, Rebecca Kim, and Jeri Kim of YISS finishing off the meet by swimming away with the Freestyle Relay and dropping 8 seconds from last year’s record (also owned by the same four swimmers). The Boys relays didn’t disappoint with SIS’ strong A and B Relay finishing 1st and 3rd and Seoul Foreign School’s A relay coming in second. All three relays were less than .75 seconds of each other with SIS’ A relay (Joshua Lim, Jeremy Nam, Andrea Shin, and Ian Lee) coming in with a time of 1:57.57.
When the dust settled and with much anticipation, Yongsan International School of Seoul’s Girls and Boys came away with the first place trophy as KAIAC Middle School All-Star Team Champions.