Courtesy of: The Morning News
Last weekend two Aruban swimmers, Patrick and Jordy Groters were active in swimming competitions in Florida. In the Olympic Pool of the International Hall of Fame, located in Fort Lauderdale is where the grand competition took pace - the 2013 International Classic Invitational.
This competition is well known among teams all across the US during the Long Course period in the United States. It also happens to be a competition where teams of different countries in the Caribbean and South America participate to offer athletes the opportunity to experience a mayor competition. Swimmers from the Aruba Dolphins and Stingrays in the past have competed in this particular competition.
This year’s participation was another big one with more tan 40 teams and a total of 1500 swimmers from ages 8 and older. For four long days swimmers competed in the morning hours in the eliminations to classify for the finals in the evening.
Jordy and Patrick were part of the Davie Nadadores team. They participated only one day, as they were in the final preparation stage to represent Aruba during CCCAN to take place next week. Jordy demonstrated his talent once again in the 100m School slam winning the Gold medal in record time for the 1.06.06 competition.
The last time that Jordy participated in this competition was back in 2007 where he broke the 50m record Free slam for the 10 years age bracket and less.
The 29.95 record of this past week was not surpassed. During the morning hours Jordy succeeded in classifying in the 200m Turnover slam. And in first place in the 50m Backslam in the 4th place. With CCCAN ahead of him the decision was taken to only swim in the 100m School slam during the final.
Patrick on the other hand, competed in the 200 Turnover slam, 50m Back slam and the 400m Free slam in the morning hours. He classified for all three evening finals. For Parterick to track his best time possible he decided to not compete in the 50m Back slam, where he was in the 9th place. In the evening, Patrick was ready to demonstrate that he can win a medal in the US. After a very close race between 4 fighting swimmers for the 3 medals, Patrick ended up with a Bronze medal for his best personal time of 2:22.16.
Patrick struggled in the 400m Free slam to complete against Gustavo Gutierrez of Argentina but failed to surpass him. Hence, he reached the wall in the second place for the Silver medal.
On Saturday Patrck and Jordy together with Daniella van den Berg as well as Jemal Le Grand leave for San Jose Costa Rica to form part of the national selection of Aruba with participation in the 2013 Central American and Caribbean Championship.
