{"id":428973,"date":"2020-04-26T09:41:08","date_gmt":"2020-04-26T16:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=428973"},"modified":"2020-04-26T13:18:36","modified_gmt":"2020-04-26T20:18:36","slug":"cal-swimming-celebrates-with-virtual-team-banquet-weitzeil-named-mvp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/cal-swimming-celebrates-with-virtual-team-banquet-weitzeil-named-mvp\/","title":{"rendered":"Cal Swimming Celebrates With Virtual Team Banquet; Weitzeil Named MVP"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this age of the coronavirus and social distancing, Cal Swimming held its annual team banquet virtually, bringing together the entire women’s team, coaches, support staff, parents and friends of the program through a Sunday morning Zoom call.<\/p>\n

While the event didn’t completely mirror previous years’ experiences, the 70-minute gathering provided many of the same elements with awards and thank yous all around. There were 48 participants from around world, including from as far away as England, the Netherlands, Australia and the Philippines.<\/p>\n

Senior Abbey Weitzeil<\/strong> earned team Most Outstanding honors for the second year in a row, adding to her long list of accomplishments for 2019-20. Last week, she was named the winner of the 2020 Honda Sport Award<\/a> for swimming as the national swimmer of the year.<\/p>\n

During the competitive season, Weitzeil reset her American record in the 50-yard free and became the first woman in history to break the 21-second barrier when she was timed in 20.90 during a December meet in Minnesota. Later, she captured the Pac-12 title in the 50 free in a meet-record 21.03. In addition, Weitzeil is a finalist for the AAU Sullivan Award, given to the top amateur athlete in the country, with the recipient announced April 29.<\/p>\n

Other Cal Swimming awards announced Sunday were:<\/p>\n