Something in the water at Mission Viejo? Yeah, distance swimmers!

Let's see, they have that saying: "birds of a feather flock together" but that phrase doesn't work when describing aquatics. How about: Fish of a flipper pod with a good skipper?

Okay, It's official, I am no poet!

Chloe Sutton, an open water swimmer who swam well at worlds is moving down south to the Natadores so as to train with the likes of Larsen Jensen, Sachiko Yamada, Fran Crippen and other aquatic-comic-book-hero-types under the guidance of Coach Bill Rose.

Lane 9 News, our most linked to swim news source has the details about who is there and some quotes from the coach regarding such talent: [Link]

Mission Viejo is becoming both a distance and open-water Mecca, err... Atlantis, for potential distance oriented Olympians. (I can't mix metaphors if I want to be a good writer. You know "fish of a Flipper", Atlantis, Olympics; it all blends now.)

More on Chloe at the Washington Post: [Link]

2007 Toyota Southern California Swimming Grand Prix

So Cal local girl, Kaitlin Sandeno, dominates the 100o SCY. Kaitlin went out stroke-for-stroke with Japanese Olympian, Sachiko Yamada; (Quasi-local girl too since Sachiko trains in OC with the Misson Viejo Nadadores), for the first 750 but beat her by a second. Her time was 9:37.06 versus Sachiko's time of 9:38.09.

It is really great seeing people come out of "retirement" and dominate their first race and she appears to appreciate it too: "I never thought I'd swim here again, and that made me sad," Sandeno said. "Some people think this is an old, dungeoney pool, but I like it. I'm really happy that all my family is still here. ... "

In the Photo above which I "deep linked" from Go-Swim, look at Kaitlin's catch and how symmetrical her stroke is. [Photo page link]

Meet results here: [link]