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CAS Blog
Luciana Pun
Finswimming World Championship
Investigation:
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Since I have been little I have been involved in swimming and when I was twelve, I have been competing for Peru. Therefore, when I heard there was the opportunity to do a CAS project about Activity I was more than excited. This was the perfect chance for me to set goals in my swimming carer. This all started last year, when I had competed in the Panamerican Games in Colombia and I had won three silver medals, improving my personal bests. As a result, I classified to the World Finswimming Championships that were going to take place in Annemasse, France in July of 2016. However, for this competition I proposed to myself that I would improve my times once again and try to get into a final.
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Preparation:
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I started to prepare for this competition since January 2016 because I knew that it was not going to be easy to get into a final or to win a medal. This is because I was going to be competing with the best of the best from all around the world. Although I was nervous, I still planned to give my best, try to improve my times and go with a good attitude. As a consequence, I had to train 3 hours a day, 6 days a week including gym.
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For this competition my training suddenly became harder than expected because my legs were not used to the lactic acid created from the fins. For the first few weeks it became very hard to complete the meters I needed to swim but it became easier each day. Still, I had some back luck one month before competing which totally shocked me.
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My back had started to hurt a few days before so I decided to go to the doctor to check what had occured and when I got there, they informed me I had to do therapy, stop swimming and recover. If I was unable to achieve this, they would not let me go and compete. I did everything I could until the day arrived and the doctor told me I was going to be able to go.
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Action:
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The 30th of June was all about geeting prepared to go to the competition: packing my bags, checking I had all my equipment, etc. I was very nervous because it was going to be the first time I every traveled alone, only accompanied by my coach. When we got to Netherlands, I became extremely happy because first, I had never been there and second because we were now close to our destination.
We wondered around the airport while we waited for our flight to Switzerland. When we got there, the organizers of the World Championship welcomed us and took us across the border to France. As soon as we arrived we went to eat and sleep because I had to get recovered from the jet lag so that I could compete with all my strengths. The next day, we went to the pool "Chateau Bleu" to swim a little a recognize the pool and try the starting blocks.
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When we got there, I was surprised on how many people form different places there were. Every where I turned, there was a person from a different country such as Japan, Lituania, Egypt, Colombia, etc. I got in the lane with a Japanese girl called Mari Yamaguchi, who would eventually become my best friend.
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After the training, we went to eat some snacks and back to the hotel so that we could rest because in the afternoon we had the inauguration ceremony. We arrived in the hotel and we bumped into the greeks and Japanese while they were eating some snacks. Although I did not know them, I went to talk to them and we ended up talking about our traditions, food and what we missed about home. We all quickly became friends and we looked forward to compete together.
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When I realized, it was too late. The bus for the inauguration ceremony had already left so my coach and I had to walk to the location. We were lucky that it was close by because if not I was going to die. First, we were asked to walk all through town with our flags so that the local population could see the different countries that were taking place. My guide was a french guy who spoke five languages and I ended up calling him "fou" as it is french for crazy.
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After the ceremony, which included live music an shows, we went to eat to a nearby park where they sold hamburgers. I sat down with the swimmer from Indonesia and I ended up learning some words such as Lima that means five. Then we went back and went to sleep.
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The first day of competition, I had to swim the 100 bifins that for me is one of the most difficult of all. Although I did not make it into the finals, I still managed to drop my time so I was still proud. Therefore, when the morning competition ended, my coach and I went to visit the town of Annemasse as we had spare time. In the afternoon, we went back to the pool for the finals and it was one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. Everyone swam incredibly fast and they managed to make amazing times.
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During dinner, we sat with the french team and it was a lot of fun talking to them because they would teach us french insults and we would teach them the same in spanish. Some of them also spoke english so it was easy to communicate with them.
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The second and third day the routine repeated itself and I also dropped my times in all my competitions. My best time of all was my 50 mts bifins because not only did I drop my time but I also got into the top 20 swimmers so it was a huge accomplishment for me. I also learning techniques from my more experienced friends, which ended up helping me a lot.
Reflection:
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I think that the most incredible thing of the competition was not only that I improved my times but the great friends I made, Every day I would get close to the other girls and boys and we even ended up exchanging numbers so that we could talk daily. Some of them became great friends for example Mari Yamaguchi (Japan), Robin Flaton (The Netherlands) and Joy Kamel (Belgium). Last week I even received a box from Japan that contained treats from Japan. This really shows you how although you are competing with this girls, not everything has to be a competition and that you language barriers are not obstacle in friendship.
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In terms of swimming, this competition has motivated me more to continue swimming and representing Peru because it was one of the most interesting and incredible moments of my life so I would love to repeat it again. Dropping my times also lead me to think that I could break the South American record so I am currently training to break that record next year.
Demonstration:
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I learned in this experience that every day you can be better than you were yesterday and that there is no feeling as great as pursuing what you love in this life. For some people it can be a carer, a person but for me it is this sport. My competition techniques also improved in during this experience because I felt a lot of pressure because it was a World Championship but I learned to control that so now that I have to compete nationally, it is like a walk in the park. Also it taught me to have faith and confidence in yourself because if you think that you will not succeed, then it won't happen, but if you do it can become possible.
CAS supervisor: Giuliana Belaunde
Here I completed my second meeting because I talked with my CAS supervisor about writing my CAS project as I had not published the article and it was very close to the due date.