NOVA News
October 16th, 2023
Mid-season serves as our strategic pit stop in the swim season, offering us the chance to evaluate our performance and identify areas for improvement. It's a moment to recalibrate our goals and dive into the second half of the season with a renewed energy!
While every race isn’t a record breaking, news making, or an Olympic qualifying swim, each swim is always an opportunity to learn and grow as a competitor, teammate, and person. Each lap, stroke, and turn contributes to our individual and collective pursuit of excellence. Heading into the upcoming meets, let's ride the wave of this momentum started by are teammates this past week and continue supporting one another like champions do.
We're eager to witness the continued triumphs in the upcoming meets. Congratulations on a fantastic start, and to more ahead! #OneNOVA
NOVA's Holiday practice schedule will run December 18th- January 8th. All practices groups have changes so please check both times and LOCATIONS!
Click HERE to find your swimmer's practice schedule.
Holiday Championship meets have begun, here's to FAST swimming.
NOVA swimmers took on the NOVA December Dip at Regency Dec 2-4th. Swimmers raced hard, had fun, and swam FAST. Swimmers got to decorate the trees and gingerbread person with best time and new time standard stickers!
Senior Dev. Silver, Age Group Silver, Age Group Bronze, Age Group Dev. Gold, Age Group Dev. Silver, Age Group Dev. Bronze, Novice Gold, Novice Silver/Bronze
Dec 2nd- 4th NOVA swimmers hit the road and headed to Williamsburg to race at the 757 Grand Illumination Meet. Our swimmers traveled, raced hard, swam fast, and supported each other as a team. Congrats to swimmers, coaches and chaperones for a great travel meet.
Group coaches: Lead Kevin Snyder Assistant Kai Kratzer
How many swimmers are in AGS? 52
What skills is AGS working on this week? As it's the lead up to the champs meet, we are working on perfecting our breakouts and finding our top end speed. Beyond that, we've been really focused on swimming with the best technique possible and doing the little things well.
Kevin, This is your first Championship meet with NOVA, what are you looking forward to? I can't wait to see all the hard work everyone has put in come to fruition and achieve some of their goals. I'm just ready to see everyone compete and swim super fast!
Kai, This is your first Championship meet with NOVA, what are you looking forward to? I’m super excited to watch all of our kids show off their hard work and go FAST! We’ve been preparing for this meet for almost 14 weeks now, AGS is in top form and ready to smash a bunch of A times!
Kevin, what's you favorite part of working with AGS? All of it, honestly. It's been awesome watching these kids develop confidence in themselves and their swimming ability, buying in to the process of getting better.
Kai, what's your favorite part of work with AGS? My favorite part about working with AGS is teaching. Teaching not only good stroke technique and race plans, but also introducing bigger concepts like delayed gratification, and mental fortitude. I get really excited when I see kids start to understand the correlation between consistent hard work in practice and meet performance.
Kevin, what's your favorite part about working with Kai? Easily his energy and enthusiasm. We have a lot of fun coaching together!
Kai, what's your favorite part about working with Kevin? Kevin brings an otherworldly amount of energy and passion to our group. In the span of an 2 hours I get to share the pool deck with a fantastic coach, dancer extraordinaire, math genius, and all around great guy.
Kevin, what's one gift you wanted as a kid that you didn't get? Electric Scooter. I thought those were the coolest things ever growing up.
Kai, what's one gift you wanted as a kid that didn't get? A Wii, for almost 10 years I begged my parents for a way to play MarioKart but to no avail.
Kevin, what is your favorite holiday memories or tradition? I remember one year it snowed on Christmas eve and it was the closest thing to a White Christmas I had growing up. My family and I walked around the neighborhood looking at the Christmas lights and luminaries. It was pretty awesome!
Kai, what is your favorite holiday memories or tradition? My favorite holiday memory will always be running down the stairs on Christmas Morning and stealing the cookies Santa had been too full to finish.
Mark your calendars for the 2024 "A Day in Paris" Swim A Thon April 20, 2024. This is NOVA's largest annual fundraiser. We need lots of corporate support to transform Regency into one of the world's most iconic tourist destinations.
If you own a business and would like information about sponsorship opportunities please email Julie Farney julie.farney@novaswim.org for more information.
Thanks to all the groups who participated in the Henrico Christmas Mother outreach! The Christmas Mother elves have picked up our donations and families in need are shopping in their warehouse.
The Goochland Christmas Mother outreach is in the collection phase and we have many items that still need to be purchased. Please feel free to click on the links below regardless of the group and drop your donation at NOVA Gayton.
All swimmers and parents are welcome to help deliver the gifts on Saturday, Dec 16th. Families can meet at NOVA Gayton Road at 11:30 am on Saturday to load vans to take the gifts to the Centerville firehouse where they will be distributed to families from 1-3pm.
Goochland Christmas Mother Links
Novice Bronze - Miller Family
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0844A5AF2FA7F4C52-46257839-christmas
Novice Silver - Gutierrez Family
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0844A5AF2FA7F4C52-46234640-christmas
Novice Gold - Combs Family
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0844A5AF2FA7F4C52-46255617-christmas
Senior Bronze and Senior Silver - Flores Family
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0844A5AF2FA7F4C52-46257638-christmas
Age Group Silver - Snead Family
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0844A5AF2FA7F4C52-46257746-christmas
Age Group Bronze - Randolph Family
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0844A5AF2FA7F4C52-46257805-christmas
Age Group Development Silver - Johnson Family
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0844A5AF2FA7F4C52-46257822-christmas
Winter Championship Meets
Speedo Winter Juniors 12/6-12/9
12 & Under BB+ Holiday Champs 12/8-12/10
TAC Blizzard Blitz- 12/8-12/10
STAR Triad Invite- 12/15-12/17
January Meets
2024 GSA January Jumpstart 1/13-1/15
NOVA LC Invitational (13 and over A+ swimmers)1/13-1/15, Entry deadline: Dec 30th Commit
NOVA BB/B/C New Year's Kick Off (BB/B/C swimmers) 1/19-1/21, Entry deadline: Jan. 8th Commit
CALLING ALL TRIATHLETES!
Join Coach James Crabb (2012 Olympic Trials Athlete, 3-time Masters National Champion) at Nova Gayton (12207 Gayton Rd) in the first swim clinic of the year. Three 2 hour sessions (4-6pm Jan 7, 14, and 21) of powerful instruction offer a deep dive into how to improve your technical skills in the water and what it takes to swim more confidently. All swimmers will have Video Analysis and should expect to learn and enhance their freestyle coordination and efficiency. All participants will receive a complimentary membership to NOVAFit for the month of January.
Spots are limited, so don’t hesitate to sign up!
Register for a specific session: HERE
Register for all 3 sessions: HERE
The Virginia Swim Shops are here to help you get ready for the holidays with gifts that every swimmer would love. Backpacks & parkas are big sellers for this time of the year and really help keep the swimmers organized and warm. We also have the new velour NOVA custom woven towels in stock, plus lots of ideas for stuffers and small gifts, including our new acrylic NOVA logo ornaments.
If you have items that need to be embroidered for holiday gifts the deadline for purchase is December 10th.
