NORTH READING — Kian Grabar made huge waves swimming for the Crimson Aquatics at the USA 2023 New England Swimming 13- to14-year-old Age Group LCM Championships, which was hosted by Harvard University between July 20-23.
Kian met the qualifying times for all 14 individual events and raced in the maximum allowed seven individual events plus multiple team relays. His performance earned him the most coveted Top Individual HighPoint Award and contributed to his 11–14 age group team’s first place finish over all other teams.
Swimmers from 48 swim teams across New England were qualified to participate in this elite championship swim meet, which included 117 qualified boys aged 13 to 14 years old. This grueling competition requires speed, endurance, stamina and significant grit as it spans three and a half long days competing in an Olympic-length 50-meter pool with morning Preliminary races required to qualify for the evening Finals round. Peak performance requires proper focus and management of nutrition, hydration, warm up/cool downs, speed, and rapid recovery and rest.
Earns PB’s in seven individual events
Kian earned a Personal Best time in each of his individual races at this competition, which included first place in three events: 400 Individual Medley (4:53.45; -0.88s), 200 Individual Medley (2:16.79; -3.96s) and 200 Butterfly (2:14.79; -1.36s).
Kian earned second place in the 200 Backstroke with a time of 2:18.21 (-1.55s), third place in the 400 Freestyle with a time of 4:24.27 (-5.04s), third place in the 800 Freestyle with a time of 8:55.74 (-22.17s) and fourth place in the 200 Freestyle with a time of 2:04.39 (-3.01s).
He earned 124 individual points to snag first place in the HighPoint Award. The second place award was a three-way tie of 114 points.
Kian also participated in the 800 Freestyle Boys’ A-relay (1st place, 8:28.59) and the 400 Freestyle Boys’ A-relay (1st place, 3:50.26).
Crimson Aquatics also won the overall Team Score combining girls and boys aged 11-14 plus relay races with a total of 2,016 team points.
In attendance at the swim meet cheering for Kian were his parents, Charles and Tammy Grabar. Kian will be entering into the ninth grade at North Reading High School this fall.
He has been consistently one of North Reading’s highest performing athletes since he began setting records in the pool as an 8-year-old.
Kian will take a few weeks off from swimming before practice begins for his short course season in the 25-yard pool. He plans to continue his year round swimming for his club team, Crimson Aquatics of Andover. In addition, he is looking forward to competing in MIAA CALs competition this winter for NRHS. He has aspirations to swim at the Division 1 collegiate level.