Youth Sports Weekend: Courage Part 2

The inter-district Brophy Swimming meet

After a challenging day at the ACT little Athletics Championships on Saturday, Flash had a major swimming meet on Sunday.

The Brophy meet is a swimming competition where the two best swimmers in each age group from the swimming districts in Country NSW compete in a teams competition.

It is very exciting for Flash to be representing the 8 and under age group for the ACT in her first Brophy. She was very upset at the prospect of being too ill to participate. She woke on Sunday morning feeling a little better, so with tissues packed, we headed to the pool!

There was a really great atmosphere at the event. There were buses lined up at the front from all over NSW and all the swimmers were proudly wearing their team uniforms and in full voice!.

Flash swam really well in her individual 50m events winning a gold medal in her favorite event the 50m butterfly. She also received a silver in the breast stroke and a bronze in the backstroke and freestyle events.

However, it was the relay events that were the highlight of the meet. Flash was swimming with 3 of her swimming friends in the 9 and under relay. These 4 girls have met through swimming and most of the time, I have to say that they are in competition with one another. Having said that, though, there is absolutely no malice or ill feeling between the girls….even at this young age they understand that they push each other and support each other in a world of swimming that not many of their school friends understand.

The girls were so excited about the prospect of being in their first relay team together. They were chatting, laughing, hugging and hoping together.

Flash had been selected to swim the butterfly leg (3rd leg) of the medley relay and as the second swimmer reached the wall the girls were about 3 meters behind. To my absolute astonishment, Flash made up this distance in the butterfly leg and forged a lead of about 3m as well. Her split time for the swim was 44 .03 seconds…..about 3 seconds faster than she swan just hours before. Our last swimmer held the lead in a very, very, gutsy, and maddingly nail biting finish that had the whole pool cheering!!

In all honestly that single relay race has to be one of the highlights of my experience with youth sport to date. Watching the joy on my daughter’s face, and that of her teammates was just amazing.

I wrote in yesterdays post that in sport you need to take the good with the bad. Toady, I’m taking the good. I’m absolutely certain that that race will be remembered by those girls and their parents for a long, long time!

Sport is so much more than winning. Weather it’s youths sport, organized team sports or individual fitness and exercise. It’s about challenging yourself, finding out about your self. It’s about discovering how determination can be as important as your seed times. It’s about giving it your best shot, even if you know you are not in 100% condition. Even if you know you are not going to win. It’s about friendship and caring about the success and happiness of your team and the other members of that team…and not just your own happiness.

Sport is about finding the courage and strength within your self.

I'm linking up this post with Diary of a SAHM for #IBOT (I blog on Tuesday) come and enjoy all the blogs that have joined in and make sure she gets a hug ;)!