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Swim and dive turns competition inward during annual Blue vs. Gold meet

UCLA swim and dive cheers on the pool deck at Spieker Aquatics Center. (Nicolas Greamo/Daily Bruin senior staff)

By Felicia Keller

Oct. 27, 2024 8:38 p.m.

This post was updated Oct. 27 at 11:14 p.m.

Teammate taking on teammate is a rare sight.

But in their second meet of the year, the Bruins did just that.

No. 22 UCLA swim and dive held its annual Blue vs. Gold meet, an event that capped off an entire week of friendly challenges among the squad, across Friday and Saturday. The overall winner was determined by adding the points scored across five events – skits, weight room, social media, Friday competition and Saturday competition.

Team Blue emerged victorious by a score of 213.5-185.5, winning the skit and weight room rounds, in addition to the pool contests, while Gold won the social media interaction tilt.

“We’re trying to get as many people as we can from different sports teams to like the post. So it gets competitive, like who’s liking who, because you can only like one,” said senior Ana Jih-Schiff. “We get a lot of Instagram followers from the social media competition and outreach, and a lot of recruits reach out after these posts, so it helps the team in general moving forward.”

Jih-Schiff and the Gold team’s winning social media post featured a cinematic recreation of the beach scene from “Top Gun Maverick.”

Friday consisted of a typical dual meet schedule, with slight tweaks. While the 50-yard freestyle operated as usual, the rest of the races ran at atypical, slightly shortened distances.

“It’s really fun and a good way to practice a race plan that you otherwise wouldn’t practice in a longer race. You push yourself more in the front end of the race because it’s two less laps,” Jih-Schiff said. “So it’s exciting to see where you can be at six laps and then just think, ‘Oh, I just have one more 50 the next time I do this.’”

Coach Jordan Cordry added a unique twist to Saturday’s program, with a series of three elimination rounds where each race was determined by a pinwheel coined the “wheel of fun.”

The Blue and Gold teams were established long before this week’s events. When athletes join the program, they are permanently assigned to one of the teams for their entire UCLA career.

Saturday included an alumni relay race, with four hopping in the pool to represent their former color. Cordry said recent graduate Taylor Schaffer and Kim Vandenberg from the class of 2007 have spearheaded efforts to bring a more united front to their alumni group.

“They’ve joined forces to try to reach our alumni a little bit more, especially our local alum – get them to the program, get them to come out, support, be a part of it, donate, do all of those things – but that was all them,” Cordry said. “It’s such a awesome opportunity for us, and it’s great networking. And you get to be your Blue team or Gold team for your four years here, but then you get to be a Bruin for life.”

With their win, the Blue team broke the Gold team’s multi-year winning streak.

“I’m so happy that Blue won. It’s our first win in four years, and we were so competitive about it,” said senior Gizem Guvenc. “We won the competition, and we’re just really happy, and some of us swam our best times.”

Cordry said a focus of the event was team building, but she also wanted her team to know they can perform at a high level – even after several tough weeks of training.

“I recognize that the work we’ve been doing for the past few weeks has been really heavy,” Cordry said. “They’re all feeling that they’re really broken down, they’re really tired, and so coming out of this weekend, I want them to recognize, ‘OK, we can still work that hard and then come here and compete really, really well, even when it hurts.’”

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Felicia Keller | Internal Outreach director
Keller is the 2024-2025 internal Outreach director and Sports senior staff. She was previously an assistant Sports editor on the men’s soccer, swim and dive, women’s water polo, and softball beats and a contributor in the News and Photo sections. Keller is a third-year sociology student from San Jose, California.
Keller is the 2024-2025 internal Outreach director and Sports senior staff. She was previously an assistant Sports editor on the men’s soccer, swim and dive, women’s water polo, and softball beats and a contributor in the News and Photo sections. Keller is a third-year sociology student from San Jose, California.
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