On the 20th of September, eight members of the Havasu Stingrays Swim Team had the honor of attending the "Fitter and Faster Tour" swim clinic at the ASU pool in Phoenix with four Olympic medalists and a World Champion. Matt Grevers, Lacy Niemeyer, Megan Jendricks, Misty Hyman, and Nick Brunelli were on hand to conduct the clinic with age group swimmers in Arizona. Swimmers were able to listen in on Olympic "stories", learn about nutrition, and then finally get in the water with the Olympians to work on  technique.

Towards the end of the clinic, swimmers were able to "race" the Olympians after being given a head start!

"We never had opportunities like this when I was a young swimmer, said Coach Mike Taylor, if you were fortunate enough to train at a pool where an Olympian was training, you might get to see them, but that was it. This was an exciting and very rewarding event for all participants."

Swimmers left the clinic feeling very motivated. Stingrays Alex Johnson was moved by backstroke gold medalist Matt Grevers recounting of the mens gold medal win in the freestyle relay at Beijing. "Matt told us that if we believed in ourselves, we can achieve anything we want in life." Another Stingray, Caden Carver, was inspired by the athletes to work hard. "Being around the Olympians was really fun. They gave us drills to work on, and I wanted to make sure I did them correctly and fast, because I knew they were watching!"

The "Fitter and Faster Tour" is a clinic aimed at making Swim Champions more accessible throughout the world; improve retention rates on swim teams and hopefully play a role in saving college swim team programs.