On a really nice sunny day the Thetis Lake Swim for Multiple Sclerosis had more than 230 participants including a stalwart group of UVPCS swimmers... congratulations to Kennedy Aragon-Scriven, Ciaran Breen & Josh Stebeck for completing their 800m open water swim. Kennedy came out of the lake with the bronze medal - way to go!
David Creel of Victoria was the sole Canadian entry [in the men's 5km race] and placed 22nd in 57:37.1. Creel battled back from an elbow injury to qualify for the team.
Canada’s Age Group National Championships ran for six days in Montreal this past week; there were five days at the long course (50m) pool, and open water concluded the meet today. It was a huge event – 1500+ swimmers and 200+ teams from across the country. Preliminaries took place in two pools; ten swimmers proceeded to finals in each event. Girls’ age groups for finals were 12 & under, 13, 14, 15 and 16-18, while boys competed as 13 & under, 14, 15, 16 and 17-18.
The FINA Bureau decided to postpone the Open Water Swimming events on the programme of the 13th FINA World Championships Rome 2009, due to the weather conditions in Ostia, the location for these competitions.
The Open Water Swimming races will now take place according to the following programme: • July 21, 2009: 5km Women (11:00) and 5km Men (14:00) • July 23, 2009: 10km Women (08:30) and 10km Men (12:00) • July 25, 2009: 25km Men (08:30) and 25km Women (08:40)
ROME – Philippe Dubreuil of Sherbrooke, Que., and Zsofia Balazs of Toronto lead a six-member Canadian team in the open water swimming events at the World Aquatic Championships.
“The Open water events will be a great way to kick off the FINA Worlds for Canada,” said Pierre Lafontaine, CEO and National Coach. “You will be seeing lots of great distance pool swimmers crossing over to the open water events. The competition is getting stronger and our swimmers have shown great strength internationally, so we’re quite excited.”
Not to be outdone by their senior counterparts travelling to Montreal, a small but merry band of UVPCS swimmers (Kennedy Aragon Scriven, Lia Lancaster, Lisa McQuarrie, Anna Stebeck, Joshua Stebeck, Victoria von Sacken Nash & Patricia Ye), led by coach Mark Lancaster, journeyed to Moses Lake, Washington for the annual Manta Ray Sizzlin' Summer Invitational. Back in Victoria,we haven't heard what the weather was doing in Moses Lake last weekend (sizzling?), but it looks like coaches and swimmers had a great time...
Coaches Ron Jacks and Peter Vizsolyi and swimmers MacKenzie Downing, David Creel, Cody Flegel, Nicholas Sinclair and Richard Weinberger represented UVPCS at Summer Nationals, July 8-12 in Montreal.
Thanks to everybody who helped at these Long Course and Open Water Provincial Championships - as always, to all our parents, friends, sponsors, supporters and swimmers and coaches who worked so hard before, during and after the event (and between sessions, and &tc...) to make this happen from start to finish; thanks also to Barracudas, Chena, Glacier Bears, Island, Kokanee, Liquid Lightning, Ravensong and Sharks parents, as well as master officials from Comox, Kelowna and Williams Lake, for their time spent pitching in on the pool deck and the lake dock. We had a terrific time!!
