Monday, July 11, 2011

Underwood Competes at Jimi Flowers Classic 2011

Arizona Disabled Sports swimmer Joe Underwood traveled to the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs for the second annual Jimi Flowers Classic open disability swim meet the weekend of June 25 and 26, partially sponsored by AZDS.

This meet brought together the 44 members of the 2011 National Teams slated to swim at the Pan Pacific Para Swimming competition in Edmonton, Alberta, Can in August and the Para Pan American games in Guadalajara, Mex in November. The two teams were in Colorado for overlapping training camps between June 22 and the 28th. In addition, swimmers as young as 10 years old from around the US came, some for their first US Paralympics swimming experience.

This was Underwood’s sixth US Paralympics meet since March of 2010 as he continues to pursue the chance to make the national team. While Underwood has shown steady improvement in his times since beginning the pursuit of a spot on the US Paralympics team, the altitude in Colorado Springs kept him from matching his best times. He did, however improve his standing against the other swimmers in his classification taking third in most of his events and second in one.

“It’s pretty cool swimming in heats with American and world record holders,” Underwood said. “Saturday was Olympic Day at the OTC and there was a line of people waiting for an autograph from Rudy Garcia-Tolson, who I had just watched swimming the 1500 meter freestyle. An hour before that, I was four lanes over from him in the 50 free.”

All proceeds from the meet, tee shirt and heat sheet sales were donated to a fund to benefit the family of the late Jimi Flowers, former US Paralympics head coach and coach of the Paralympic Residence Team who was killed in a climbing accident in 2009.