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!!

It was an exciting weekend in Surrey for coaches Mark Lancaster and Rich Cole and their swimmers at the Provincial Long Course AA Championships.

Coach Ron Jacks and swimmers David Creel, Mackenzie Downing, Nicholas Sinclair and Richard Weinberger were busy the past couple of weeks travelling between coasts in the United States.

David Creel and Richard Weinberger travelled east to the Fort Myers Open Water Festival and the US Open Water Championships, where David placed tenth and sixteenth in the 5 km and 10 km respectively, and Richard was thirteenth in the 10 km event.

Swim-Natation Canada

The Technical Swimming Committee of SNC has developed two documents to assist the swimming community in understanding how we will handle the new swimwear rules (SNC GR-5). The first document attends to the application of GR-5 at provincial level competitions while the second document deals with specific procedures that will be in place for the 2009 World Aquatic Championship Trials in Montreal.

The Vancouver Island Region Long Course Championships was a great meet for UVPCS - well done to both swimmers and coaches for terrific swimming, best times and placings!

The annual NRST Spring Sprint yielded lots of best times and top-8 performances from UVPCS swimmers!

Earning first place ribbons were Hanna Carter, Caileigh Filmer, Ryan Howe, Evan Letkeman, Annie MacIntosh, Lauren McMillan, Victoria Mock, Rosie Moulton, Austin Nolt, Akila Sato-Gaudreau, Jade Simpas, Brenden Ward and Tabitha Zammit.

Top-3 finalists were Emma Carter, Samantha Gibson, Patricia Horwood, Victoria Jetko, Alexandra Kierstead, Josh Stebeck and Ariyan Suleman.

Strong international competition at the Mel Zajac Invitiational featured UVPCS swimmers placing in top-8 and top-16 positions. Leading the pack, MacKenzie Downing finished top-8 in all three Butterfly events with second, fourth and seventh places in the 200, 100 and 50 metres, respectively; while David Creel was fifth in the 1500 Freestyle event. In B-finals, Nicholas Sinclair placed in all three Backstroke events, at 13th, 14th and 15th for descending 200, 100 and 50 metres, respectively.

UVPCS results from the Island May Invitational featured Sophia Borchers, MacKenzie Downing, Lauren McMillan and Rosie Moulton in first-place finishes. Also in the top 3 were Nival Bissoon, Salin Bol, Hanna Carter, Michael de Clare, Caileigh Filmer, Katelyn Hayward, Evan Letkeman, Ian Mattock and Rachael Newman. Rounding out the top-8 were Emily Ding, Kody Flegel, Ryan Howe, Alexandra Kierstead, Remy Mock, Victoria Mock, Stephen Olmos, Julia Schmidt, Brenden Ward and Allison Wood.

Swimming for Team BC, UVPCS swimmer Salin Bol took double Silver and a Bronze medal to complete the BC-Alberta Dual Meet in Kamloops on April 25th. Congratulations Salin! Also on Team BC, teammate Aidan Thirkell was unfortunately unable to compete in his indivudal events due to injury.

Complete details for the meet will be available, as always, on our results page.

Eight teams and 183 swimmers from BC and Washington descended on Saanich Commonwealth Place for the Sixth Annual PCS 14 & under Wavemaker Invitational and we had a great time underneath the palm trees and bouncing beach balls. Officials set a fine standard for beach wear (even one grass skirt) and competitors enjoyed ice cream ... that is...carrots... on the final morning after heats. Fun and fast swimming!