Olympic Swimmers Teach Global Community to Local Athletes

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Los Angeles, California, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) January 23, 2012 --

At the Zenith Aquatic Program, athletes learn not just how to swim faster, but how to be part of their local and global community. On Sunday, January 29, competitive swimmers from ZAP will swim to raise money for the still-ravaged Sendai, Japan. In a partnership with the International Swimming Hall of Fame (ISHOF), ZAP swimmers who solicited pledges from their local community will swim continuously for an hour in their home pool at Miraleste Intermediate School in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, in honor of their fellow swimmers in Japan. In recognition of the athletes' efforts, three Olympic athletes will join the festivities after the swim.

"Sometimes the opportunity arises to help someone else, someone you don’t even know, when they didn’t ask for it, and when you don’t expect a thing in return," says Head Coach and ZAP Founder, DeAnne Twidwell-Preyer. "What makes that kind of help so meaningful is that it is genuine, from the heart, with no strings attached. Opportunities like this don’t always fall in our laps, but this month we have a unique opportunity to erase the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean and help fellow swimmers who don’t even know we are thinking about them."

After they began collecting pledges, ZAP swimmers were surprised with some news: Olympic breaststroke champion Kosuke Kitajima, a Japanese and international swimming hero, will visit them at the event. Kitajima, 29, won both the 100m and 200m breaststroke events in the last Olympics, and he holds the world records in both those events.

Then more news: Austrian olympian, Markus Rogan, and world record holder Jessica Hardy (Long Beach, CA) want in the fun, too. They will also be attending the festivities following the swim. Their coach, USC Swimming and Trojan Swim Club Head Coach Dave Salo, will accompany them to the south bay area pool.

Also attending the event will be Bryan Weaver, ISHOF Representative and long-time south bay swimmer, water polo player, coach, and teacher.

In March of last year, a massive 8.9 earthquake struck eastern Japan. Shortly after the quake, news of a resulting tsunami made citizens worldwide shudder. When later news of a possible nuclear reactor crisis came, it all almost seemed too much for any country to bear. Coastal Sendai, the major city closest to the quake's epicenter, was covered in a blanket of water. Communities turned to each other for support. Thousands lost everything.

According to the US Geological Service, when the proverbial dust had settled, 15,703 people were dead, 4,647 missing, 5,314 injured, 130,927 displaced, and at least 332,395 buildings, 2,126 roads, 56 bridges and 26 railways were destroyed or damaged. This is not an impact from which a city or country recovers quickly, and even 10 months later, families still need help. Unfortunately, too often in situations like these, help stops coming after a few months.

Swimmers in Sendai and the surrounding area not only lost training facilities; they lost their homes and sometimes members of their families. The coaches at ZAP have always worked to instill a culture of world citizenry in their athletes. Swimmers work to be the best they can be both physically and mentally; and to build character worthy of our increasingly small global community. “‘$wim for Sendai’ is another way for these athletes to learn these valuable lessons as well as to have a real impact on an international scale,” says Preyer. “That the professionals are coming just proves to our swimmers that what they do in and out of the pool matters.”

For more information about ZAP or this event, contact Doris Yamamoto, 310-922-4525 or dny97@yahoo.com. Read about ZAP online at: www.zapswimming.com.

Dave Salo     Jessica Hardy     Kosuke Kitajima     Markus Rogan     san pedro     swim     Torrance     USC