Texas Ford Aquatics The 2020 Quacken
- Saturday-Sunday, August 1st-2nd
- Hosted by Texas Ford Aquatics
- Frisco, Texas
- SCY (Short Course Yards)
Texas Ford Aquatics hosted its first intrasquad meet since the beginning of quarantine. The meet, named The 2020 Quacken, was held across 4 sessions on August 1st and 2nd.
The meet was highlighted by Miles Schultze who added a new best time and Junior National cut in the 200 breast, clocking a 2:04.09. This marks over a second drop from his previous best, swum just before quarantine at the Champion’s Series-College Station in February.
Joining Shultze in picking up qualifying standards was Jenna Kerkman in the 100 breast. Kerkman finished the race in 1:05.92, dropping over half a second and qualifying to swim the race at the 2020 Futures Championships.
Beginning in July, USA Swimming began allowing teams to hold sanctioned meets, but the times were not allowed to qualify for national programs like Scholastic All-America awards, nor for qualifying standards for meets beyond the LSC level. Those restrictions were lifted in August, however, and now times from sanctioned meets can be used as national event qualifying times, meaning that the times swum by Texas Ford swimmers this weekend should count.
Other Notable Swims
- 16-year old Lane White dropped three seconds in his 200 free (1:42.77), earning a Sectionals cut.
- Ella Elvambuena swam to new best times in both the 100 breast (1:09.41) and 100 fly (58.79)
- Yochanan Meza (13) swam to a best time and Texas Age Group Swimming (TAGS) Championship cut in the 200 fly (2:01.60).
Across the two day meet 71% of races swum by TFA athletes resulted in best times.
TFA emphasized maintaining proper social distancing and sanitation throughout the 2-day meet. Along with requiring temperature checks and masks to be worn by all athletes and staff, they also required sanitation breaks after every two events to ensure the cleanest possible environment for all people on the pool deck. They limited the total number of athletes in each session to 80 in order to allow for proper social distancing.
One of the first teams to return to the water, TFA has been back training since May. With 952 USA Swimming registered athletes spread across three different training facilities, the team is one of the largest in the country.