Mixed relays

Gender mixing is a great way of ensuring motivation for sport in both main sexes. Sports are still divided into male and female and for that purpose I need to express that in both sexes.*

The headline reads Hackney Aquatics at Winter Nationals 2018, there are only boys in the picture.

The 2020 Olympics in Tokyo will feature mixed relays in swimming and athletics. See article.

Hm, it’s just that Hackney Aquatics did not send one female swimmer to the Swim England Winter Championships and the only team swimming was purely male.

I welcome the mixed relay strategy as it motivates clubs to encourage male and female alike to make it to the top-level of their sport. Yet Swim England did not entertain any mixed relay races at the recent short-course winter champs either.

Madison is losing the drive for performance. Not only does the steroid injection give her a pounding headache, there is also little encouragement to get in with the girls so to speak.

I don’t know whether it is an expression of status for girls in Hackney, to show that it was the girls who picked up the award from London Swimming for volunteering club of the year, as all recipients, with exception of head coach Rick Hall, were female. Rick of course accepted the trophy for the outstanding contribution to swimming in London.

Is it the classic old-fashioned boys and girls do this and that atmosphere?

Yet the volunteering award shows the girls. I don’t really want to stereotype but the thought simply comes to mind.

Madison’s whole attitude is changing from wanting to be at the top of the sport to wanting to become a volunteer. As I have heard, Sport England very much supports that scheme. And I really hope they read this.

I do not want to take away from the achievement of either the boy swimmers or the girl volunteers but instead would like to emphasize that a mix is a better result than purely just boys or girls achieving in either category.

*Of course many forms these days provide various possibilities of gender identity but that doesn’t work for sport, so all who want to raise an eyebrow about me using both sexes as an expression, please refer to the general rules in sport about this.

The THH and HAC partnership

arena1 Overall the location has solved a problem for swimmers and it worked out well. All those swimmers who left Bethnal Green Sharks to continue their careers at Hackney Aquatics have made an excellent choice.

Swimmers always just want to get the best training they can and it was a choice of the committed swimmers from Bethnal Green to move to Hackney.

The Advanced Coaching scheme provides training set to national standards and it proved a treat for swimmers who will compete at the Winter Nationals next week.

Madison is sorry to have missed the Arena league competition final but the team did very well. What a rise from bottom league to Premier League in the space of 2 years. The Arena League is a superb competition concept as it allows the whole team, across the ages and squads to come together as a team and seal the club spirit and set the tone for the season.

For many the friendship and team spirit make the choice to become swimmers easy.

Summer champs interim rankings

There are several categories and for England Madison has gotten the time but she is not listed.

For 50 back there are swimmers listed with as slow as 34:73 for 50 back.

Madison’s time is 33:16 LC converted from a 32:55 SC. Of course the ranking system only seems to take times from the speed achieved in long-course races, where Madison’s last PB was 35:38. Perhaps British Swimming can adapt the Team Unify system that automatically converts times to suit both disciplines.

In all other events they accept converted times, of course I think Madison will up-date her long-course time achieved in long course in the next competition but I’ll also have to contact the coach about this one.