Cody Bronnenberg Shines In Irvine for Junior Nationals!

PCST Breaks Into the National Scene With Brilliant Performances By Cody Bronnenberg in Irvine, California!

I realize each of my Tsunami families have received the daily updates from Irvine, California during our fantastic week at Junior Nationals.  However, you know we have to put this stuff up on the front page of the website too because we are incredibly proud of Cody and cannot wait to report more as his teammates join him at Junior Nationals and beyond over this next year.

To make a long wonderful story short, our trip to Irvine, CA for the Speedo Junior National Long Course Championships was nothing short of FANTASTIC!  The meet itself had 1286 total athletes from 407 teams!!!  Talk about huge and fast!  Just qualifying for the meet and making the trip with our upcoming Senior, Cody Bronnenberg, would have been a neat story in and of itself.  If you know Cody though, that would have not been sufficient.  If Cody is going to a meet, he's going to race and he's prepared to do whatever it takes to swim lights out. 

After an incredible run in Knoxville at the Southeastern Championships where Cody first achieved his Junior National qualifying time in the 100 Breast as well as Bonus Times in the 100 Back, 400 IM, 200 Breast, it was tough to imagine that he would be able to dig deeper and go even faster.  But he did!  A large majority of young swimmers who qualify for a major national meets for the first time and then go race at that meet 2 weeks later often do not improve their times for various reasons.  This could be due to anything ranging from physical stress, to difficulty getting the body and mind emotionally ready for that level of racing again, to dealing with the nervousness of being at a big time meet for the first time.

While Cody has swum at the NCSA Junior Nationals in Orlando, never before has he competed at a true national meet like the Speedo Junior Nationals where there is USA Swimming signage all over the place, everything is red, white and blue, and there are celebrity swimmers and coaches as far as the eye can see.  I'm proud to say that not a single bit of it detered Cody and in fact actually got him more prepared for his races.  He came out that very first day in the 200 Breast and REALLY opened some eyes with a blistering 2:25.30!  That was his 2nd Junior National qualifying time and was only 1 second off of the Winter National cut!

Never fear because Cody wasn't done yet.  The 400 IM was next and after dropping 22 seconds from last season to this season, he still managed to drop another 2 seconds to go 4:40.93!  In the process, he also swam his best ever 100 fly time as his lead off 100 was a smoking 1:01.6.  Day three brought the 100 backstroke in a time trial event.  He did, in fact, qualify for the 100 back as a bonus swim, but the way the events laid out for the week it made more sense to do it as a time trial event.  He dropped about 0.07 to go another best time, including the fastest 50 back split in team history. 

Finally, on Thursday came Cody's favorite race............his bread and butter..............the one that got him there...............the 100 breast.  He had a great race and only missed his best time by 0.1 seconds.  But as you can imagine that was not good enough for Cody.  He is a great competitor and I would never change that about him, but the fact of the matter is he had an unbelievable meet before that and it's not easy getting up to race on the 6th day you're there and still come within 0.1 seconds of the swim you had as the fresh first race of the weekend nearly 3 weeks prior at that point. 

Did I mention that the trip also brought unforgettable little adventures like our trip to Newport/Laguna/Corona del Mar and Huntington Beaches?  Or how about the trip to Hollywood where we took pictures of the famous Hollywood sign and sidewalk stars?  Or what about the opportunity to watch Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Aaron Piersol and Tyler Clary all face off in an epic 200 back at Nationals in an attempt to qualify for the Pan Pacific Championships to represent the USA two weeks later?  Oh yeah..........and I can't forget about In and Out Burger!!! (Ahhhhhhh..........can you hear the angels singing when I say that?)

Needless to say, it was a terrific adventure and we are all so very proud of Cody.  However.........not only is Co Co just getting started, so are the Tsunamis.  I am really looking forward to having a true "Team" at that meet this time next year.  Here are some terrific stats from a terrific meet for you..

Cody Bronnenberg
Day 1: 200 Breast (2:25.30; previous best was 2:28); Seeded 121st and Finished 56th
Day 2: 400 IM (4:40.93; previous best was 4:42); Seeded 122nd and Finished 88th
Day 3: 100 Back (1:00.51; previous best was 1:00.5); Time Trial
Day 4: 100 Breast (1:07.29; best was 1:07.1); Seeded 52nd and Finished 60th

Cody is now less than 1 second off of the US National Qualifying Time in the 100 Breast and right at 1 second off of the 200 Breast.  Are you ready for one heck of an exciting short course season???

CATCH THE WAVE!

Coach Jonathan