By Andrew Ross
A wise man once said there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. A glance at the Dinos’ results at last weekend’s Canada West finals confirms this bit of 19th-century knowledge. While both the men and women Dinos came in second, and only three individual Dinos won events, the weekend was a triumph for the University of Calgary.
The scoreboard says the men earned 747.5 points to 837.5 for the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds, while the women came just shy of UBC’s 652 points with 626 of their own.
"We lost by 30 points, and they had eight Olympians but we had none," explained Julia Wright, who placed in three events at the meet.
Indeed, the rookie-dominated Dinos team was missing Head Coach Mike Blondal and top-swimmer Carrie Burgoyne, who was competing on the World Cup circuit in Europe.
When asked to comment on her team’s performance (and her predictions from last week), Megan Kinsella pointed out she forecasted a win at the Canadian Intercollegiate Athletic Union championships, not at Canada West.
"We swam awesome," enthused Kinsella. "We’re still gonna win CIs."
On the other side of the pool, the men were also pleased with their performance, winning two events as well as qualifying their last team member for the CIAU tourney.
"I think we did great," said Michael Power. "It was a really good team atmosphere."
Although UBC traditionally does better during the season than does the U of C, the Dinos managed to stay close to the T-Birds this year. They are now only a month of training and preparation away from the CIAU finals.
"CIs are gonna be really close," said veteran Dino Jonathan Fowler. "We’ve definitely got a shot to take it this year."
Will the Dinos win CIs? Will coach Blondal be there? Will the cocky swimmers be vindicated or knocked off their high horse? Find out next week on One Length to Swim.