Comets Place at the 2012 Northeast IMX Extreme Games

As noted in our LAST BLOG POST, the Comets had 7 swimmers competing in Washington DC at the 2012 Northeast IMX Extreme Games. This is a championship meet featuring some of the best IMX swimmers in the northeastern United States from Virginia all the way up to Maine.

Comets IMX team (from L): Coach Regelsberger, Sidney St. Rose-Finear, Arthur Fan,

Tyler Regelsberger, Gabby Studebaker, Zach Shine, Ashley Ali, 

Coach Musshafen and Brandon Crist

The meet was a great success and all of the swimmers achieved best times. Many got all best times or best times in the majority of swims. All of the swimmers improved their individual IMX scores. I'm told the swimmers all had a great time as well and it was a motivating experience to swim against some of the best swimmers in this part of the country in this format meet. All look forward on returning home and continuing to work hard at practice to continue the great improvements they have made.

Two of the Comets swimmers managed to score in the Top-16 bracket of their age division, which earns them a nice plague and allows their points to score for team scoring. Top-16 means that their cumulative IMX scored in the top 16 places for their age division. For example 11 y/o girls score against other 11 y/o girls and 11 y/o boys only score against other  11y/o boys.... etc. all the way through 14 y/o boys.

Sidney St. Rose-Finear's IMX score of 2980 was good enough to place 13th among the 11 year old girls at the meet. That score is also the 2nd highest in the Niagara LSC for the entire year and within the top-200 11 y/o girls in the entire country. She averages 596 across all of the 5 event in the series.

Arthur Fan's IMX score of 4031 was good enough for 2nd overall for the 13 y/o boys division. This score is the highest score in the LSC for his division and places him in the top 60 nationally among all 13 year old boys. Arthur's score is also 5th among ALL 6000+ swimmers (of any age) in all of Niagara LSC across the entire IMX series. Considering Arthur just turned 13 in October, he is sure to improve on these scores through the course of the season (IMX runs through the year from Sept-Aug). Arthur averages 671 points per event across the 6 events in the series.

From Left: Coach Musshafen, Arthur Fan, Sidney St. Rose-Finear

We are extraordinarily proud of Sidney, Arthur, Zach, Gabby, Ashley, Tyler and Brandon for their great work and we're excited to watch their progress going forward. The IMX Extreme Challenge is the ultimate test of versatility for swimming athletes and requires that swimmers dedicate themselves to ALL STROKES and disciplines in order to succeed. It's not just good enough to be "good" at one stroke/distance. You must work equally hard at them all to succeed.

We're very proud that among the 5 teams representing Niagara LSC, only the Golden Comets placed swimmers in the top-16 and registered a team score of 7011 (Sidney and Arthur's combined score). This is good for roughly 12th-13th (final scores pending) among the 60-70 teams represented.

7 Comet Swimmers travel to DC for the Northeast IMX Games

The Golden Comets sent 7 swimmers down to Washington DC area to represent themselves, the club and Niagara LSC in the Northeast IMX Extreme Games. The IMX Extreme Program is an age group program  where swimmers are "challenged" to participate in a broad range of swim events. Their times are given a "score" based on the strength of the performance (using an elaborate power point algorithm) and swimmers are ranked based on the cumulative score. Learn more about the IMX Extreme program: HERE.


The meet in Washington is a championship meet that brings together the top swimmers (aged 11-14) in the Northeast United States to compete against each other in all the event. The final scores are then tabulated and awards are given to the top swimmers in each age category. Swimmers must meet a specific qualifying score to be eligible to compete at this Championship meet. Below are the events that the swimmers compete in. In order to score, you must compete in each event at the meet in your age bracket.


11-12 year olds: 500 Free, 100 Back, 100 Breast, 100 Fly, 200 IM
13-14 year olds:  500 Free, 200 Back, 200 Breast, 200 Fly, 200 IM, 400 IM

This meet features some of the most talented age group swimmers in all of the northeast USA. There are approximately 20 swimmers from the Niagara LSC (which is comprised of all of western New York) competing at this event, 7 of whom are from the Comets. Participants include


11 year olds: Sidney St. Rose-Finear, Gabby Studebaker, Ashley Ali and Brandon Crist.
12 year olds: Tyler Regelsberger
13 year olds: Arthur Fan and Zachary Shine

After 3 events, the Comets are doing extremely well with many lifetime best times. Highlights include top 10 single age finishes for 11 y/o Sidney St. Rose-Finear in the 500 Fr (5th - 5:42.98) and the 100 Fly - (9th - 1:08.68).  13 y/o Arthur Fan scored top 10 finishes in all 4 events so far - 500 Fr (1st - 5:06.10), 200 IM, (3rd - 2:12.27), 200 Fly (5th - 2:10.41) and the 200 Breast (6th - 2:29.55).

The swimmers will compete in their last events today and we will have the final results later.