Some things in life are worth the wait. Standing in line for 20 minutes on a hot summer day in Fort Lauderdale, at the Smoothie Café, just to suck down your fill of a strawberry and banana smoothie in 30 seconds. Well worth it. Sitting in traffic on the way to a Red Hot Chili Peppers Concert, just to find out your seats are three miles from the stage. Well worth it. Max Lettau, an age group swimmer with Fort Lauderdale Aquatics, discovered that it is also well worth the wait to find out, a mere month after he swam, that he had made his first JO Qualifying Time Standard.

Due to complications with the results at the Plantation Open in the beginning of June, the official times were not handed back until recently. Coach Ian Cross and Coach Duffy Dillon, still up in Omaha for Olympic Trials, discovered that the final results had shown that Max had made the 50 freestyle JO cut with the computer system’s backup time. The two coaches had to wait a few more days to let Lettau know in person.

“A Cut is a Cut, no matter when you find out”, said Coach Cross. “I am just very happy for Max. He has waited a long time for this, and has worked very hard for it. If there is anyone on the team that deserves this, it is Max. With Division II’s coming up, all the pressure of trying to make it to JO’s is now gone. He can just relax and race hard.”

Lettau’s 50 Free time of 34.31 was 18 one-hundredths of a second under the qualifying time.

“When we told max he had made it, his face just lit up”, Coach Dillon said. “He is such a hard worker, and when you work as hard as Max does, eventually, good things will happen to you.”

Junior Olympics is held at Plantation Park from July 24th-27th.