In October, 29 boys and girls from the BCIS Swimming Team joined the Shanghai American School Swimming Competition and accomplished many incredible feats. Mr. Darren Skov, Director of Athletics and Activities at BCIS, led the team to success. The swimmers that joined the event were:

Wendy Wang/Merida Zhang /Jiahe Mi /Amy Zhang/Anthony Wu/ YiRan Gui/Jiajun Lin/ Shawn Li/ Zheng Cao/Lucy Luo/Jessica Lin/ Daisy Li/ BaoYan A/Ding Ding Zhou/ James Yan/ Kevin Wu / Jaden Li/Noah Savou / Liam Morrissey/ Zack Lu / Tong Tong Wang/David Lyu / Alex Qu/Ben Jiang / William Hu/Elaine Chen/Jennifer Lin /Annabel Richmond/ Molly Todd.

With a total score of 274.5, BCIS ranked 7th among all the teams that joined the competition. With less than 30 swimmers, our school was actually categorized as a "small team."

Each member of the BCIS team, whether from the Elementary School (ES) or Secondary School (SS), showed great determination to do their best. In the group photo above, the swimmers in the first row (sitting on the ground) are age 8. While they are young, they won gold and silver medals. Anthony Wu won first place, while Yi Ran Gui took third place in the "8-Year-Old Boys All-Rounder" competition. Wendy Wang came in third place in the "8-Year-Old Girls All-Rounder" competition. The second row consists of our 9 and 10-year-old (Grades 4 and 5) students. Ding Ding, James, Jaden, and Kevin took 6th place in the relay competition. In the photo, the students that are standing are the swimmers from the SS. Grade 8 student Elaine Chen won first place in the "13-Year-Old Girls All-Rounder" competition. Noah, Liam, William, and Tong Tong ranked 5th in the relay competition. Molly, Jennifer, Annabel, and Elaine took 4th place in the Girls Relay. Alex, Ben, Zack, and David also had a very good performance. In such sporting events, equally important as the scores are the attitudes the players possess, the team work that they do, and the sportsmanship they display, which our young Warriors proved through their excellent behavior and skills. For example, Grade 12 student Molly Todd agreed to join the other three girls in the relay race in order to form a complete team, even though her academic workload is extremely heavy. In addition, Bao Yan A placed the overall team performance before his personal interest by choosing to swim the breaststroke, which is currently his "weakest form." Grade 5 student Ding Ding accepted the last minute team decision to switch his competition item to the butterfly because James, Grade 4 student, was actually still recovering from an illness recovery. Daisy also agreed to fill in for a team member that was not able to join the competition at the last minute. Lastly, the three boys, Alex, Ben, and Zack, and the two girls, Jennifer and Annabel, worked very hard to compete with those who are older than them by agreeing to move up to the 13-year-old-or-above level.

Although the entire competition was a long journey, all the parents of the contestants silently supported and cooperated with the teachers until the very end, who were always busy with various tasks, including checking in to places and inspecting the pools. Students Maggie and Ella didn't even have time to eat at noon during the main competition. When the athletes were overcome with stress, Mr. Richmond went down to them and guided them with much care. This occurred even when his own daughter took part in her individual swim race, which he was not able to watch. Mr. Darren walked back and forth on the side of the pool all the day, taking photos and videos of the Warriors in action. There were so many touching moments, with parent volunteers also taking photos, recording videos, collaborating together, and helping the children as best as possible. The parents who did not come to the competition were relieved that they could see a full live broadcast in 360 degrees of the event group. All in all, everyone that went on the trip possessed a selfless spirit and made the BCIS Family very proud!

(Article written by Ms. Zhao Jing)