August 6, 2003
TC Breakers make waves down under
Local swim club members attend 10-day competition in Australia
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Who would expect that hundreds of hours and thousands of laps could be the ticket to scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef or seeing the Sydney Opera House?
Three area swimmers from the Traverse City Breakers Swim Club recently discovered that pool time led to plane time as they traveled to Australia last month to participate in an international swim tournament. Sports Tours, a program that brings athletes from different countries together for competition and cultural exchange, hosted the event.
For ten days, Keeli De Poister, 13, Erin Holstad, 12, and Tyler Sylvester, 12, accompanied by current Breakers coach Mike Cutler and former coach Kevin Ott, immersed themselves both under water and down under. In addition to two days of practices and competition, they also visited the cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Cairnes and Newcastle.
Other swimmers and coaches from Michigan, Illinois and Indiana also participated in the trip. Six teams of swimmers participated -each team fielding approximately 15 swimmers - comprising four boys' teams and two girls' teams.
Despite the many distractions, the swimmers from Traverse City stayed focused on their main mission: swimming.
"I liked the competition, the meet, it was a lot of fun," said Holstad, who has been swimming for five years and also plays soccer and runs track.
Holstad swam in eight events and was named best top 11-year-old female at the meet (she turned 12 shortly after returning home.)
She also enjoyed petting kangaroos and touring around the country, cementing friendships with other girls on the tour.
"It was great, we saw the Opera House and the Harbor Bridge," said Holstad, who has stayed in touch with her friends and hopes to meet with them soon. "I hung out with three different girls and I made some good friends."
Sylvester was runner up for best 12-year-old male swimmer, competing in nine events. A natural swimmer who began swimming with the Breakers three years ago despite having no formal training, Sylvester also enjoyed the challenges of facing off with the other swimmers.
"It was good competition for me, I came in second overall," he said. "The most challenging was the first practice we had in Cairnes, it was a low quality pool and very cold, not the cleanest. We did a bunch of dry-land training because it was so cold."
The social aspect was also important to Sylvester, who enjoyed hanging around peers whose lives revolve around swimming.
"It was good to meet a lot of kids my age, I made a lot of friends," he added.
Every year, Sports Tours invites students to participate in events, sending out letters in the fall to swimmers who meet certain training, time and improvement qualifications. Teams form from those who accept. Coaches such as Butler and Ott, who recently moved to Alaska for a new Coast Guard posting, are also invited by the organization to help out. They sponsor events in a variety of sports and countries, including Germany, Holland and the Dominican Republic.
Cutler said the experience was invaluable for both the coaches and the swimmers. Cutler tried to meet with the swimmers assigned to his team before the trip; those he could not connect with he corresponded with via email. He also attended a coaches' clinic in May sponsored by Sports Tours.
"From a coaching perspective it was wonderful to experience different kids from different areas who all had the same love of the sport and the same common goals," said Cutler, who has been a Breakers coach for four years.