The top two finishes at last weekend’s CIS Swimming Championships look the same for both the women and the men: British Columbia first, Calgary second. Though the Dinos beat both Thunderbirds teams at the Canada West Championships, they came up a little short at CIs.
The women finished a mere 50 points behind UBS’s 666.5 score, well ahead of third place Laval’s 327 points. The men finished with 428 points to UBC’s 618.5, while McGill was third with 312.
“It’s easy to be disappointed that we didn’t win the women’s,” stated Dinos Head Coach Blondal. “But the individual performances were very strong.”
Blondal was particularly proud of Erin Gammel, who captured two individual gold medals, and the women’s 4 X 100m medley relay team, which won gold while setting CIS, club and provincial records.
“That was a really awesome swim for those girls,” he said.
On the men’s side, Chad Murray had noteworthy performances considering he spent the week prior to the meet battling the flu.
Because of his illness, Murray swam primarily in shorter events and ended up swimming against world-record holder Brian Johns of UBC.
“He swam very well,” Blondal said of Murray. “He just ended up with silver instead of gold.”
Overall, Blondal was pleased with the result, and will continue pursuing the elusive CIS title.
“It was a very solid meet,” he admitted. “We just have to up our game to win next year–and have a very good recruiting year.
The Dinos will lose Mike Power, Jarrod Ballem and Jane Mikulchik to graduation this year, but the team has enough depth to fill the ranks.
“They’ve been leaders and tough swimmers,” said Blondal.
“They consistently try hard. They’ll be replaced by people with similar traits” he added.
Medallists:
Women
Carrie Burgoyne: silver, 400m IM
Kristy Cameron: silver, 100m breaststroke; gold, 200m breaststroke; silver, 200m IM
Erin Gammel: gold, 50m backstroke; gold, 100m backstroke
Laura Grant: bronze, 50m butterfly
Alexandra Lys: silver, 100m freestyle
Emma Spooner: gold, 100m breaststroke; bronze, 200m breaststroke; silver, 50m breaststroke
Lys, Grant, Andrea Baker, Cameron: silver, 400m freestyle relay
Lys, Cameron, Burgoyne, Gail Findlay-Shirras: silver, 800m freestyle relay
Gammel, Spooner, Grant, Lys: gold, 400m medley relay
Men
Jarrod Ballem: bronze, 400m freestyle; bronze, 1500m freestyle
Cameron Hyder: silver, 400m IM
Chad Murray: gold, 100m butterfly; bronze, 200m butterfly; silver, 200m IM
Hyder, Ballem, Murray, Mike Power: silver, 800m freestyle relay