By Rodrigo Rojas, Head Coach

The first annual Wave-A-Thon is over and in the books with over 166,000 metres swum and close to $24,000 raised.

Congratulations to everyone who took part – it was a great success on so many levels!

Capital Wave relies upon fundraising as well as membership fees to be able to deliver its programming throughout the season. For the past few years our traditional fundraising  event has been leaf raking. 

Well, no more! We can all put down those rakes! Let the leaves just rest where they fall and we’ll save those muscles for what we do best, swimming! I think we can safely say that Wave-A-Thon is now a part of the Capital Wave family for the foreseeable future.

And to think, this event is yet another “gift” of the Coronavirus. We cancelled our leaf raking to help prevent the spread and came up with the Wave-A-Thon as its replacement. It continues to be a year full of adaptation and surprises.

The biggest surprise though was the way that our athletes took on this challenge and made it fun. It turned competitive very quickly after I announced the event to our athletes. They each wanted to do their best, get as many laps as possible and challenge each other to do more. Any competition these days is welcomed, it was great to see. 

There were lots of stories from the event that I’d like to share with you.

  • One was Stanley Anderson explaining to his dad how he swam the event. I heard Stanley say, “I just turned off my mind and swam.” Isn’t that great to hear? Giving our athletes the chance to just turn off the world for a while, even for just 45 minutes, is to be celebrated.
  • My sister, Veronica, taking part after 6 months out of the water and almost beating me. I mean, good try!
  • Several PLAY! Polo athletes came up to me asking when the next Wave-A-Thon would be as they already wanted to beat their current record. 
  • My fellow coach, Fraser, bragging that he beat me this time around and how I needed to join the 120 club. It’s friendly competitions like this that make me want to set goals for myself and maintain in great physical shape. He better look out for next year!

The excitement on our kids faces when they finished and heard their number of laps was something unforgettable. They were so proud of themselves and surprised themselves. 

This incredible event wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our families and their friends. Thank you to all who contributed to our event and we hope our athletes made you proud! I can’t wait to see what next year brings and let’s see if we can break the 200,000 meter mark.