PHOENIX, Arizona, October 30. BY invitation, Swimming World Magazine<\/i> traveled to Cancun, Mexico last week to take in a Masters swim meet. In a country where swimming pools are limited and the meets are few and far between, the international swimming community is doing a fantastic job of promoting our sport.<\/p>\n
After the devastation of Hurricane Wilma, it's been a long hard road for the city of Cancun to get back on its feet. With remnants of the hurricane still very visible, more than 800 swimmers traveled to that city to participate in a swim meet and were greeted (literally) with open arms. <\/p>\n
Tucked behind a private preparatory school is a 25-meter, 8-lane, covered pool, with a statue of Walter Payton on the ground. Who would have thought? With banners blowing in the tropical breezes, music blaring, and vendor booths lined up, volunteers ran everywhere. It was your typical swim meet atmosphere. Although the language barrier could have been a problem at such a large international meet, the majority of swimmers were either bilingual or multilingual. Being part of swimming is being part of swimming, no matter what country one is in.<\/p>\n
Typical of any Masters meet, the age span ran from 19 to 84. Amid the young and old, we met two 1968 Olympians, a coach from Cuba, folks from Texas and swimmers from Italy and Canada. This being our first Masters meet in Mexico, what were we to expect? Quiet stands? No way! Canes and wheelchairs? No way! These Masters swimmers are fit, dedicated and passionate about their sport. It was like being at an age group meet with the hoots and hollers of the spectators, excitement from swimmers who'd just set a record, stern concentration as they stepped up to the blocks and very competitive racing.<\/p>\n
Swimming World Magazine<\/i> offers its congratulations to Federacion Mexicana de Natacion and Asociacion Masters Del Caribe for a successful international meet, and it was an honor to be there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PHOENIX, Arizona, October 30. BY invitation, Swimming World Magazine traveled to Cancun, Mexico last week to take in a Masters swim meet. In a country where swimming pools are limited<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-masters","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n