12 year old Reece Whitley rang in the holiday season with a monster swim at the Jersey Wahoos Thanksgiving Meet this weekend. In the 200 breaststroke he clocked a 2:10.40 breaking Michael Andrew’s 11-12 National Age Group record by almost 3 seconds (2:13.33). That’s almost 6 seconds under Whitley’s previous PR of 2:16.32 set last month. We’ll try to track down more info on the swim and update you when we find more details.
by Garrett McCaffrey 16
November 18th, 2012
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Great promise… At 6’4″ and being 12 and having the co-ordination to do a 2:10 200 breast is very imprerssive!
I also noticed from doing some research that Reece is African-American. All the pushing for African-American children to learn to swim but many including Cullen Jones might just be starting to show some results. Getting the masses to just have the ability to keep their heads above water is the bigger goal obviously though, and rightly so.
Speaking on Xu Danlu, the Chinese young ladies have long produced amazing results at a young age. However, more recently the trend is being to change in that some of those young ladies are now going on to produce great results (Tang Yi, Ye Shiwen, Li Xuanxu for example) and I would not be shocked in Xu Danlu continues to gradually improve for… Read more »
Why do you sound so surprised?
Middle Atlantic LSC has been culturally diverse for as long as I can remember. First time I swam in an AAU meet in 1978, the Fox Classic hosted by Foxcatcher at West Chester, there were many African American swimmers. I didn’t think it was anything different or unusual, and nobody else was making a big deal out of it. Trevor Freeland kicked my butt, and I wasn’t surprised by that. He was a very strong swimmer. That was 34 years ago. More than 20 years ago, Danielle Strader was swimming for North Penn, so cultural diversity is nothing new for that club, either.
So, if it’s 2012, and it’s still surprising for… Read more »
Yeah -they got arms & legs too.
I don’t think it’s that people are surprised by an African American swimming fast, because we all know we can, it’s that we’re surprised that he is sticking with the sport rather than football or basketball where there are more African American pros and role models. Swimming doesn’t have that yet, and thats what we’re looking for and hoping for with a kid like Reece.
That was not the point of my post at all, you have completely missed the point in-fact. Maybe it was only in the UK coverage but quite a few times the commentators mentioned work Cullen Jones had done with children from minority groups to get them involved in swimming, not just competitively but on all levels.
Moreover, there has also been huge pushes in the UK in the last decade to get children from ethnic minorities into pools and giving them the life tool that is swimming. Figures suggest (In the UK atleast) that white children are 2-5 times more likely to be able to swim than children from any other demographic.
I was noting the GOOD work that… Read more »
True. Did you see the Asian Games results? 13 year old Xu Danlu went 4:05/8:22. I don’t think Evans or Ledecky were going that fast at 13!!
Thank you for the news but with the chinese swimmers, especially on the women’s side, we are used to see these times from very young people in the long distances. And then they struggle to improve. So I’m not much impressed.
Amazing period for swimming records! And it happens all over the world.
If he did that in the Jersey Wahoos pool, I’m beyond impressed. It’s a humble facility.
It was done at CCIT pool(Gloucester County Institute Of Technolgy) a ;50 meter 25 across that the Wahoos rent for meets a couple times a year. State HS championships there. The only HS Championship Meet in the country not scored. Always plenty of seats available easy to get a good seat. No one else can probably say that.
Been there. When I left NJ in 1998, I don’t think Wahoos and GCIT were too friendly with each other. There were kids who left Wahoos to go to GCIT around that time. I guess they’ve all made friends now. The only news I’ve heard about GCIT since I left the area was about Jack Schwerzler, who I remember from Tri-County in the 70s and 80s.
The Wahoos have rented continuously since 1996 at GCIT. Never been a problem between clubs. Swimmers go where they feel like. The Wahoos were always welcome by the director in 96 and on. GCIT team did run meets till after 2002 and one interest there is to get rentals.
Especially since he did it against versus competition. The Andrews kid does it in time trials as seen via his youtube videos. Good for the kid.
He in fact is 6-4, and he’s a great kid…..if you can call someone his size a kid. Penn Charter actually has a tremendous group of 12-13 year olds, so keep an eye out for them.
Just read that he is 6-4 [!].