by Rich Cole
Full article appeared in the UVic Student Newspaper The Martlet

What did you do for reading break? A little traveling? Maybe you even managed to study a little bit between naps? While most were sleeping it off, the Vikes Varsity swim team defended their hometown pride.

After some early season meets, the team returned home to school the 17 other clubs that participated in the Pacific Cup at Commonwealth Place. Joining their Victoria affiliate Pacific Coast Swimming, the Vikes guarded their home waters and took first place.

Ten PCS swimmers made the trip up to Campbell River for their All-level meet. The group swam really well with most swimmers going best times in the majority of their events.

Standouts for the weekend were:

The full force of Pacific Coast Swimming was felt over the weekend at the Pacific Cup meet at Saanich Commonwealth Pool. PCS Swimmers at all levels had an excellent meet resulting in PCS winning the overall team title by more than 700 points.

The University of Victoria swim team joined with other PCS teammates to compete at the Colleges Cup in Vancouver and had some excellent performances. With the smallest team entered in the competition the team pulled together to finish in 3^rd place over all on the men's side and in fifth on the women's. For this competition the Vikes teamed up with Pacific Coast Swimming athletes John Stamhuis, Karley Stutzel and Christin Petelski to form the Victoria team entry.

A large portion of the PCS National / Varsity group competed at the first BC Senior Circuit meet of the 2002 - 2003 season. The BC Senior Circuit is composed of three meets culminating at the BC Senior Championships in February 2003. Athletes earn series points for placing in the top 16 in each event at the three meets with prize money being awarded in six separate categories (Sprint Free, Distance Free, Backstroke, Breaststroke, Butterfly and IM) for both male and female.

Pacific Coast had it's first meet and it was great! We had 25 swimmers with all their new t-shirts and caps on. Everyone had a great time and swam really well for the first meet of the year. We had five of our coaches come and check out the action and help to coach the swimmers at all levels. All in all it was a good experience for all the PCS swimmers who attended. We even came home with two bags of ribbons mostly blue! (the coaches favorite color). Swimmers can check the results out on the web in the next few days.

Karley Stutzel came off a tough race series at the 2002 World Open Water Swimming Championships to place 4th overall at the final FINA Open Water World Cup stop in Alexandria, Egypt. Her time of 2:14.04 was a mere 8 seconds behind the overall winner.

Dave Creel who had also just finished the 5km and 10km races at the World Championships also competed at the World Cup stop and finished his 10km race in a time of 2:04.44 good enough for eighth position overall and only 4 seconds behind 3rd place.

The 10 km World Open Water Championship race took place in Egypt yesterday and Pacific Coast swimmers David Creel and Karley Stutzel both took part and finished strong in a tough world class field. On the women's side the event was extremely close as only three one hundredths of a second separated the top two competitors. Pacific Coast Swimming's Karley Stutzel finished in 11th position in a time of 1:59.45. The women's event was won in a time of 1:56.42 by Germany's Britta Kamrau.

It was a blistering day in Egypt with temperatures over 40 degrees celsius as both Karley Stutzel and Dave Creel competed in the 5km to open the 2002 World Open Water Swimming Championships. On the women's side it was 30 year old Viola Valli from Italy who took the gold medal in a time of 56 minutes and 23 seconds. Stutzel, who is Canada's only female entrant in the World Championship's finished in 12th position in a time of 58 minutes and 44 seconds.

Two Pacific Coast Swimming athletes left early this morning for the 2002 Open Water Swimming World Championships in Egypt. Karley Stutzel was fourth in the 10km event at last years World Aquatic Championships in Japan and will be looking to move into a podium position this year. Stutzel is in her third year at the University of Victoria and is the two-time Canadian Female Long Distance Swimmer of the Year in 2000 and 2001. Stutzel will compete in the 5km and 10km events.