Didim American College student Maya Gördüemel hit a silver streak at last week’s 2023 regional swimming championships.

Maya, representing Ege Yükselen Swimming Club, competed at the two-day championships held in Nazili. She competed in six races for the age nine-ten category – obtaining the most medals by any one student overall. Her times were even quicker than the winner of the boys’ races.

She competed in the 50m Back, 50m Butterfly 50m Front Crawl, 100m Front Crawl, 50m Breaststroke and 100m Breaststroke. Sadly she was disqualified from one silver due to not touching the wall with both hands at the same time.

Maya only missed out on two golds by less than a point of a second. The winner was 44,06 and Maya’s time was 44.22 for the 50m Back Stroke, with more than a 10-second gap to third place.

She has been training with her team Mira Zeynep Dedemen, Derin Amcalar, Amine Ayliz Türkay, Kadir Çınar, Deniz Şura Kuşlar and Taylan Cömert Çağlayan for this event for the last six months, and she did not disappoint her coaches.

She remains the only person to bring back swimming medals to Didim since the club was formed two years ago. She has amassed a fantastic haul of 19 medals from four completions.

When we asked Maya how she felt about receiving the most medals in the competition, she replied “if only they were gold. I will have to train harder!”