Top Competitions Junior Olympics. Desert Aquatics has swimmers as young as 9 years old go to Junior Olympics every year. We had three swimmers eligible to go to Q in January of this year and four went in January of 1996. Swimming is a great sport for building self-esteem, mental and physical discipline, physical strength, agility, and aerobic capacity in young people. Swimming is one of the few sports that can boast this level of participation in competitions.
Most swimmers carry the self-discipline over into their school work.
Most of our older swimmers maintain 3.0 or better GPA's. Self-esteem cannot be given to anyone, it is earned. Swimmers gain self-esteem by mastering the water and successfully competing in meets. Younger swimmers often win ribbons for placing anywhere within the top eight places in their events, and we try to recommend entry into races where they will obtain those prizes. These younger swimmers then feel good about their performances and are encouraged to keep up with the sport so they can go to the next meet and win more.