The American Samoa Swimming Association farewelled its team of one swimmer and two coaches on Monday morning, August 22nd to attend the 14th Pacific Games in New Caledonia. The swimmer, Tilali Scanlan, and officials, Debbs Cox and Hayley Double flew to Auckland, New Zealand first where Tilali swam in two events...
in a Manurewa Swim Club meet. She used the Aotearoa competition to prepare for the Noumea events.
Tilali Scanlan is an 11-year old swimmer and comes from the village of Vaitogi. According to ASSA president Erika Radewagen, she is "home-schooled."
Radewagen reported that Tilali swam the 200m individual medley in three minutes and four seconds and was clocked at 39.51 seconds in the fast 50m butterfly race. After the Manurewa competition, Tilali and her two coaches headed for New Caledonia to join the American Samoa contingent of close to 170 athletes and officials that arrived in Noumea early Thursday morning, Noumea time.
The territorial group paraded with 21 other countries and territories during the official opening of the 14th Pacific Games that took place in the capital, Noumea, on Friday August 26, Samoan time.
Tilali is scheduled to swim in eight events including all four competitive stroke styles during the five days of competition, according to Radewagen.
"In the past, we haven't entered this variety of events for our swimmers, but Tilali is a well-rounded swimmer and we are keen to see how she does at this level of competition," explains Radewagen.
Tilali has trained with her coaches at the Tradewinds Hotel pool for the past year, and president Radewagen offers her sincere appreciation to the Tradewinds Hotel for its team sponsorship.
"Although the pool is only 18 meters long (compared to the 50-meter Olympic-sized pool in Noumea), the use of the pool is a step up from past national team training sessions at Utulei Beach. In the past, ASSA has turned out strong sprinters but lacked in the technical aspect of competitive swimming namely in starts, turns, and finishes.
"It's hard to practice these components when you have no deck or walls. We are very happy that Tradewinds Hotel offered the use of the pool for our national team training venue," comments Coach Double.
Radewagen says that Tilali has been training with coaches Cox and Double of Tutuila Swimming since 2008 and rounds out her dryland cross training with the American Samoa Judo Federation. Tilali has been competing at the local and inter-island level for the past 3 years.
"We depend heavily on our relationship with the Samoa Swimming Federation. We are extremely grateful that they invited us to compete with their clubs during the year since they have a competition-level pool facility and a large enough program to have good-sized competitions; the meets are a great checkpoint for us," notes Coach Cox.
In addition to the large amount of training Tilali requires to bring her body into top physical condition, fundraising for the trip was also a necessity. The ASSA president says they staged a continuous-relay swim event called team swim at the ASNOC Olympic Day on June 18.
"Six junior swimmers from Tutuila Swimming swam around a 25-meter rope for 2 hours to raise money for Tilali's Pacific Games preparation and participation. The swimmers persevered through rough waters, an extremely high tide, and strong wind to complete their swim pledges.
"We are looking to make the team swim an annual event. It really showcases our swimmers' talents to the community and gives people an idea of what swimming is about here."
Tilali and her two coaches will take the same route that they took to reach Noumea when her swimming competition ends as she is booked to compete in the Manurewa Winter Carnival, a regional swim meet in New Zealand.
President Radewagen and ASSA would like to offer their thanks to the Tradewinds Hotel, Samoa Motors, The Tool Shop, Island Energy, and Marine Inc., National Pacific Insurance, Mr. Joey Cummings, and the swimmers of Tutuila Swimming for their generous contributions in preparing the American Samoa National Swim Team for the 14th Pacific Games in Noumea.
The Pacific Games swimming competitions will start on Monday, August 29 and end on Monday September 5.
Tilali will be a busy athlete at the swimming pool. She competes in eight events in five days. She begins her chase for gold in the 50m butterfly heats on Monday morning, August 29 at 11.20. If she is qualified for the medal rounds, she will swim again in the evening of the same day at close to seven. Medal presentations for that event will take place immediately after.
On Tuesday morning at 10 o'clock, the lone swimmer from the territory will be in the pool again fighting for a place in the medal rounds in the 200m freestyle heat. When she completes that race, Tilali has little time to prepare for her next swim in the qualifying heat of the 100m breaststroke that will take place at 10.55. Finals in both events will be held in the evening and medals will be distributed to the winners soon after.
On Wednesday morning, August 31, Tilali will have to reach deep in her air tanks to push her through the pool as she competes in two events, the 200m breaststroke that will take place at 10.25 and the 100m butterfly at 10.55. In the event that she will qualify in both heats, she will swim for a medal in the evening.
At 10 minutes after 10 on Thursday morning, September 1, Tilali will try to qualify for the medal rounds in the fast 50m freestyle event. Finals will be held in the evening of the same day.
On Friday morning at 10.20 the American Samoan swimmer will attempt to qualify for the 100m freestyle medal rounds. Twenty-five minutes later, Tilali will swim her eighth event in five days of competition, the grueling 400m individual medley.
Eleven nations and territories will take part in the swimming events that will be held at the Dumbéa Centre aquatique régional Verlaguet in Noumea. They are: American Samoa, Federal States of Micronesia, Fiji, Guam, Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, Palau, Papoua-New-Guinea, Tahiti, Tokelau, and Tonga.
New Caledonia collected 27 gold medals, 22 silver, and 25 bronze in the Pacific Games swimming events that were held in Samoa in 2007.