Nine Bruins will join a field of more than 600 of the nation’s top women swimmers as they converge in Atlanta, Ga., today for the Short Course National Championships.
The meet, which is being held in the winter for the first time, will last three days and is structurally identical to the Pac-10 Championships and the NCAAs. After the short course part of the meet ““ which ends Saturday night ““ qualifying swimmers will race Sunday in the Long Course Championships, with events similar to those in international completion and the Olympics.
Along with collegiate athletes, the country’s best high-school and post-graduate swimmers will be competing.
Swim coach Cyndi Gallagher said that while the meet is important and there will certainly be some fast times, the team will try to treat this weekend as another learning experience.
“It is a big deal for sure,” Gallagher said. “It’s nationals. That’s a big deal. But we’ll treat it just as we would another meet.”
Gallagher also said that besides the obvious benefits of simulating what competition will be like at the NCAAs, the freshmen traveling with UCLA’s team will gain some much-needed experience. Of the nine UCLA swimmers competing, five are freshmen.
“Anytime I can get kids more experience racing, get an opportunity to teach them, learn about them, and watch them race, that will be good,” Gallagher said.
And when the team returns from Atlanta, it won’t get any easier. Many of the girls will have to immediately prepare for finals and then brace themselves for their so-called “Hell Week,” an especially intense stretch of practice over winter break.
For Gallagher, the middle of the swim season means more practice and hard work.
“Right now it’s just about trying to get better every day and getting back to hard training,” Gallagher said. “That’s kind of what our goal is: trying to get better every day.”
ALL-AMERICAN DIVER SIGNS WITH BRUINS: Junior Olympic All-American Alyssa Robinson signed her national letter of intent to join the UCLA diving team in fall 2008.
Robinson, who is currently a senior at Menlo School in Palo Alto, is also a three-time qualifier for the U.S. Senior Nationals.
About 30 of the elite divers in the country are invited to compete in Senior Nationals each year.
In the 2007 Junior Olympic National Championship, Robinson placed fourth in the 3-meter event and seventh in the 1-meter event.
“I think we’re just really excited about Alyssa coming in,” dive coach Tom Stebbins said.
“She is clearly one of the top seniors in the country. She’s a great kid, I feel like she’s a really good match for what we’re about. I feel real confident that immediately she’s going to come in and have an impact.”