The Canadian Interuniversity Sport Swimming Championship held at Universite Laval Feb. 24-26 mirrored the Canada West Championship that took place a month earlier. Since no word exists to describe the domination that took place, I’ll make one up: the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds thromplasted the competition. The Dinos were a solid second behind their T-Bird rivals.
On the men’s side, UBC quickly jumped to a lead and held on. After the first day of competition, they had 262 points to the second-placed Dinos’ 155. By the end of the second day, the T-Birds had more than double the Dinos’ 268-point total with 542. On the final day of competition, our men tried their darnedest, but were out-swam by the T-Birds 711-434.
Veteran Chad Hankewich brought in the sole gold for the Dinos men, winning the 100-metre freestyle. He also earned three silver medallions in the 200-metre freestyle and 50- and 100-metre butterfly.
Kevin Gillespie and Michael Driedger were third in the 200-metre freestyle and 1,500-metre freestyle respectively. The men’s relay teams were second in the 4X100- and 4X200-metre freestyle and the 4X100-metre medley.
On the ladies’ side the Dinos left themselves with some catching up to do. They were third behind UBC and Laval after the first day’s races. Their 121 points put them 24 points behind Laval and more than a hundred points back from the T-Birds.
A strong second day pushed them 13 points ahead of Laval with 267, but still well behind the UBC team, who had accumulated 506 points. Although the Dinos stretched their lead over Laval in the third and final day of competition, the T-Birds continued to swim away. Their 764.5-point total left the Dinos settling for second with 398.5 points.
Katelyn Murdoch performed strongly enough to earn CIS Women’s Swimming Rookie of the Year. She was second in the 100-metre backstroke.
Laura Grant brought in the real hardware though, winning the ladies’ only gold in the 50-metre freestyle. She also placed second in the 100-metre freestyle and was third in the 50-metre butterfly. Elizabeth Hendrick was second in both the 50- and 200-metre breaststroke and third in the 100-metre breaststroke.
A quadrafactor consisting of Grant, Murdoch, Hendrick and Andrea Baker managed third in the 4X100-metre freestyle and 4X100-metre medley.