Swimmers Take Bermuda

For the last two years, four Tiger swimmers accompanied teammates over the school’s winter long weekend for an intensive four-day training trip at the Bermuda National Sports Center. The training paid off with participating swimmers performing extraordinarily well at the end-of-season New England Championships. Hoping to make similar gains, interest in the trip surged this year with 32 Tiger swimmers (9 girls, 13 boys) traversing 700 miles of the Atlantic to Bermuda.

Several host families made their homes available for Suffield’s swimmers: Matt and Aileen Smith P’20, Annette Bosch Budge P’19, ’21, Chris and Tracey Gibbons P’21, and Christopher and Jane Reeves P’20. While the swimmers were kept quite busy with workouts during the trip, they found time to visit Dockyards (site of the famed 2019 America’s Cup) and pursued shopping in downtown Hamilton.

A highlight of the training was the coaching help provided by Julian Fletcher ’09, a 2016 Rio Olympian (100, 200 breaststroke) for Bermuda. Fletcher led Suffield’s own breaststroke hopefuls through a series of drills over the course of two sessions to give them a fine tuning for upcoming meets.

Both teams are off to a great start in dual meet competition with the girls’ team, in particular, boasting an undefeated season, including impressive wins over Choate, Hopkins, Exeter, Andover, and reigning team champion Greenwich Academy. The team looks to challenge for the Division I team title in March, while the boys hope to return to top form in the same meet.

All eight Suffield seniors (Sophia Roche, Amanda Kikonyogo, Samantha Hagberg, Caitlin Lally, Oscar Ceria, Brett Smith, Marco Secchiaroli, and Mikey Ford) attended the trip, providing valuable leadership for the 32-person contingent. With only two dual meets remaining, the Tigers look to showcase their high level of conditioning in the weeks ahead.