by Pete Lewis - UVic Vikes Athletics and Recreation

by Pete Lewis - UVic Vikes Athletics and Recreation

Victoria, B.C. - Day one of the Canadian University Sport Swimming Championship saw over 30 teams with approximately 312 athletes converge on Saanich Commonwealth Place. The Vikes certainly made their presence felt in this pool of talent. Tension was high as several CIS records were broken, culminating in Brian Johns of UBC breaking a world record in the 400m individual medley.

Several members of Pacific Coast Swimming will head to snowy Regina this weekend to take part in the 2003 Western Canadian Championships and head coach Ron Jacks has some great expectations for this small group. "I am hoping that we can advance some of these guys past the national qualifying standard in their respective events" said Jacks."With the World Championship trials in Victoria this June it would be great to give them a few months to prepare by getting the standard this weekend.

Pacific Coast Swimming had a number of winners over the weekend at the 2003 Team Aquatic Supplies BC Senior Circuit. Christin Petelski (Breast), John Stamhuis (IM), Dave Creel (Distance Free) and Jesse Jacks (Fly) were all named the overall winners of the BC Senior Circuit in their respective categories.

Pacific Coast Swimming had it's first provincial record breaker this past weekend at the Wave Maker swim meet. Craig Dagnall broke the11-12 year old boys Provincial record for the 800 freestyle by over 20 seconds posting a time of 9:51.85.

Way to go Craig!!!

David Creel capped off a successful weekend at the PCS Wave Maker by breaking a 14 year old club record in the 800 freestyle. His winning time of 8:04.15 broke the Vikes and PCS record that was held by Brett Regan and had stood since the late 1980's. Creel split 4:01.72 for the first 400 and then came back extremely strong in 4:02.43.

The third PCS mini camp went off extremely well on the weekend with 29 swimmers attending the session. There were 13 coaches on deck helping the swimmers learn the best way to change strokes through the Individual Medley events.

At the VIR Championships in Comox last weekend Pacific Coast Swimming placed second overall in the team scoring with 3,024 points. With a team just over half the size of the winning team 27 athletes swam hard throughout the weekend. When the team size was taken in to account PCS actually came out on top with the average point score per swimmer being 112.

The University of Victoria Vikes finished the 2003 Canada West Championships this past weekend with a total of 10 medals, four of them gold. The small team from Uvic found themselves up against some tough competition during the three day event as the Canada West schools once again showed why they are the best swimming conference in the country.

Fourth Year Vikes swimmer Philip Weiss added another Canada West gold medal to his collection on Day 2 at the Swimming Championships in Calgary. Weiss, two-time UVic Athlete of the Year, won the men's 100 metre butterfly event in a personal best time of 55.14. This is Weiss' first year back in the pool after a break from the sport for two years. Jesse Jacks won his third medal of the weekend picking up the bronze in a time of 55.23.