Congratulations Jessica! We are very proud of you.
Here is a report from the Canadian/American Paralympic
Championships. The Rogers' family and Coach Andy headed north in a fully packed
van, and had a long and snowy drive to Toronto, Canada-with a trip through the
area of Niagara Falls. We had dinner there, overlooking the falls, although our
view was misty and cloudy. Arriving Wednesday evening in Toronto, we spent
Thursday getting the lay of the land and the water (the pool). The land is
COLD, the gas prices here are $4.80 a gallon and the sales tax is 13%. All of
that took a bit of getting used to, but the pool facilities were more familiar,
as they were somewhat similar to those at GMU.
There are 10 countries here-Korea, Brazil, Sweden, Mexico, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, Belgium, France, the US, and Canada, but it is still a relatively small meet with only small representation from each country. Coach Andy was busy learning all the ins and outs of paralympic swim competitions and making some connections on deck. On Thursday, Jessica did both morning and evening workouts with Coach Andy, and he also attended a coaches' meeting.
Friday morning, Jessica swam prelims for the 100M breast and the 50 M fly. She made finals in both events, and swam that evening. With little competition in the 100m breast, she came home with the gold medal that is shaped like a large Canadian maple leaf. Her breaststroke improved by 4 seconds off her best time, which moved her up 2 places in the world rankings, from 17th to 15th. In the fly, she also brought her time down, making the equivalent of her yard time in a meter long course pool. Though she did make the finals, the competition was tough and she came in 5th for the 50 fly in the finals.
Saturday, the morning prelims began with her 3 events, the 50 m free, the 100 m back, and the 200 I M. She swam all of her events clean, but she did not make the finals for the 50 free, however, she was only off of her best time by 30/100th of a second. She did make finals for the 100 back and 200 IM, and her IM in prelims was a 13 second drop from her previous best time.
Saturday evening, she swam the IM and backstroke finals. In the backstroke, she came in 5th, and her time dropped by 2 seconds. For the IM finals she was up against some new competition, another 13 year old from the US. The two girls each promised to beat each other in a heated race for the gold. She gave it her all, and her time dropped by another 10 seconds for a 23 second drop overall. Her new time moves her into 13th ranking in the world, but she came in second place. Jessica's time drops for the meet totaled 30 seconds for her 5 events.
With 1 gold medal in her hand, Jessica, her family, and
Coach Andy, head for home feeling like this was another big step in the right
direction.
