Winskill Dolphins Swim Club

This weekend we have 14 swimmers heading over to Fleetwood to compete at the SKSC LMR meet. Most of the athletes will only be competing on the Sunday.

Warm-up times for Saturday’s 12 & Over session are 1pm for a 2:10pm start. Estimated finish time is 5:30pm.

Sunday’s times are; 11 & Unders - 8am warm-up for 9:10am start. 12 & Overs - 1:30pm warm-up for a 2:40pm start. Estimated finish time is 6pm.

Download the Psych sheet for the meet here.

Download the Meet Package here. (Includes updated start times)

May group calendars are now posted. Because the Boundary Bay Bluebacks - the summer swim club - start on May 1st we will be cramped for space for the remainder of the season in the afternoons at Winskill, it’s the same each year so please be good neighbours, clean up after yourselves and enjoy the company!

• National group May calendar
• Provincial group May calendar
• Regional group May calendar
• Junior Dolphins May calendar
• Team Calendar
• Spring/Summer events schedule

We realize that the April Calendars are done, we are waiting for confirmation on our pool booking requests for May and June (since Bluebacks begin). Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week will be the same for each group as last week’s schedule, however there will be no Monday AM practice for Provincial/National groups.

We have a few meets coming up for various levels of swimmers in the next month and a half - before the championship season begins at the end of June. Although there are no meets this upcoming weekend as we move into May there are more events upcoming.

Please make sure you’re staying on top of these entries as time is getting short for those of you who are looking to still qualify for Provincials (July 3-7),  Age-Group Nationals (July 24-28) and the Team BC Far Western trip (July 29 - Aug. 4th).

• SKSC LMR (SC) - May 11
• Fleetwood
• Meet Package
• Meet Notice
• Entries
• Hyack Youth Cup (LC) - May 16-20
• New Westminster
• Meet Package
• Meet Notice
• Entries
• Mel Zajac Jr (LC) - May 22 - 25
• UBC
• Meet Package
• Entries
• PASS #5 (SC) - May 24
• Watermania - 8:45am - 12:00pm
• CRKW Invite (SC) - June 14/15
• Campbell River
• Meet Package
• Meet Notice

The Mies Schootman meet was a few days ago now, but the performance of the Winskill swimmers at the meet deserves a writeup no matter how late.

We had a tonne of best times, as well as many first time Long Course (50m pool) performances, which is an accomplishment in itself. We also had Chase McDonald make her first final ever - in the 50m Breaststroke! Also notable were Vito Zou and Alyssa von Ende quickly closing in on their Age-Group National qualifying times in the 200m Freestyle, and 100m Butterfly.
From the meet we ended up with many medals;

Karyn Jewell - 2 Gold, 1 Silver, 2 Bronze and the trophy for winning the combined final in the Girl’s 400 IM.
Meghan Kwiatkowski - 1 Gold, 2 Silver, 1 Bronze
Micaela Kwiatkowski - 2 Bronze
Matt Lock - 1 Gold
Madie Poon - 1 Bronze
Nick Quenville - 1 Gold, 2 Silver, 2 Bronze
Luke Reilly - 1 Gold, 3 Bronze
Stefanie Serka - 1 Silver, 2 Bronze
Mckenzie Summers - 1 Bronze
Alyssa von Ende - 2 Silver, 1 Bronze
Vito Zou - 1 Silver

We also had a lot of swimmers breaking club records;
Meghan Kwiatkowski - 50 Back, 100 Back, 50 Free, 100 Free
Colette Summers - 50 Breast
Nunu Singh - 100 Fly, 200 Fly
Luke Reilly - 800 Free
Vito Zou - 50 Breast
All results from the meet are available here.

WDSC results from the meet are here.

Day one at the Mies Schootman meet was great, lots of awesome swims and best times. Highlights included Meghan Kwiatkowski winning the 12 year old 50m Backstroke by over a second with a new best time and club record of 35.06. Nick Quenville also took an event win with a 4:27 in the 400 Freestyle.

Nick is having a great meet; so far placing first, second (50m Butterfly - in a new Western and Age-Group cut, just .03 off the club record) and third (50m Backstroke).
We had lots of medalists also, Karyn Jewell (3rd in the 200 Back), Stefanie Serka (2nd in the 200 Breast), Alyssa von Ende (2nd in the 50 Fly), and Luke Reilly (3rd in the 400 Free, 1500 Free - under the age-group cut for the first time - and 50 Back).
Live results from the meet are available here.

The Psych sheets for this weekend’s Mies Schootman Invitational at UBC are now available here.

The meet package is here.

Anyone who is not going on the Friday has practice at Winskill from 3:45 - 6:30pm.

Yikes - Have I mentioned before how many ups and downs there are at this meet? Wow. Today UBCD had a pretty flat day - no new qualifiers and only one swim in the finals.

Favourites to make the 2008 Beijing team, Scott Dickens and Brittany Reimer are not going to be going to China this summer. It’s really hard to make the Olympics - really, really hard. Both of these athletes are Canadian record holders, international games medalists and former Olympians, yet both have come up short in qualifying this week.

People talk a lot about whether sport builds character or reveals it, and over the past three days Scott Dickens has been a textbook example of this. On the first day, in the 100m Breaststroke he swam under the FINA ‘A’ cut to qualify first for the finals. Last summer, he won the Gold medal at the Pan Am games, and the FISU world student games… in the final on Tuesday he came 4th and failed to qualify for Beijing in his best event. Many people would have many different reactions to this, and he was obviously upset but I think it’s a true testament to the amount of work, training and discipline he has behind him that he managed to refocus on the 200m Breaststroke and put together a great performance tonight, sure he came up short of making the team but at least he will be able to say that he did EVERYTHING he could to make it there. Scott’s performance tonight was something truly inspiring.

And talk about emotional ups and downs… tonight Jake Tapp (LOSC) made the 2008 Olympic team in a SWIM-OFF for the 100m Backstroke spot after TYING with Rob Taylor (COBRA) for first place in finals. For most people swimming in the Olympic trials final is more pressure than they will ever have to deal with at any point in their lives… imagine going from that to then swimming off to claim your spot!

WOW.

I was nervous for this race… imagine how they must have felt!

Both swimmers ended up going faster than they did the day before in the final but Tapp got the touch and the berth on the team.
Taylor got nothing.
And not just nothing, one moment he’s in the (literally) race of his life, and the next the winner is being interview by CBC while he has to skulk off avoiding the cameras.

This meet is truly like no other.

Today we had 3 Canadian records set, the winner of the Men’s 200m Breast - Mike Brown - bettered his own record with a 2:11.01. Adam Sioui won the Men’s 200 Fly with a 1:57.98 Canadian Record, and in the women’s 200 Freestyle both Genvieve Saumur (1:59.22) and Julia Wilkinson (1:58.73) went under the existing record. Once again, to re-iterate how hard it is to make this Olympic team, Erica Morningstar - Canadian record holder and World Championship finalist last spring - made the Women’s 4×200 relay by .19!

Wow.

We were done early tonight since we had no ‘B’ finals swims and it’s really only when you leave the building that you can feel how tense you’ve been - I’m sure my shoulders dropped a good 2cm as I got onto Le Metro… and we’re only half way done the meet!

So far UBC Dolphins have qualified 5 swimmers for the team, with a total of 7 BC athletes on the Canadian contingent.

Megan Clark did a great job in the 200 Freestyle this morning - swimming a well split, well executed race which resulted in a 1.2 second best time (and broke her own club record) with a 2:10.31. She has tomorrow off before her ‘real’ events start with the 100m Freestyle on Saturday, and the 50m on Sunday.
Download psych sheets here.

Live results here.

Swim BC Trials blog is here.

Another exciting day filled with ups and downs for the UBC Dolphins team. Today we had three additional qualifiers to the 2008 Canadian Olympic team - Brent Hayden, Annamay Pierse and Savannah King.

In the first event of the night, the Men’s 200 Freestyle Colin Russell took the win with a quick 1:46.99.  Our own Brent Hayden took the second place individual qualifying spot, while qualifying for the relay was Andrew Hurd, Adam Sioui and UBCD’s Brian Johns - this being his second event since he also made it in the 400 IM last night. In the Women’s 100 Back there was only one swimmer under the FINA ‘A’ cut - Julia Wilkinson in a new Canadian record at 1:01.41, despite a great effort Caitlin Meredith came up short of the team nomination with a 3rd place 1:02.77.

The men’s 100m Backstroke was a pretty intense race - Callum Ng had a bit of a disappointing race with an 8th with a 56.87, well off his best time. Matt Hawes also missed the team after qualifying in 1st place after the prelims, Matt has a good chance to make the nomination in the 200. A lot of the excitement came from the fact that two swimmers TIED for the first place spot, but did not go faster than the ‘A’ cut - meaning we can only send one of them… meaning they have to do a swim-off… talk about pressure!

The final exciting event of the night was the Women’s 400 Freestyle, again massive ups and downs emotionally for our team as 15 year old Savannah King made the team, but Canadian record holder, Brittany Reimer did not.

At our coach’s meeting today we discussed just how important it is for swimmers to stay focused and maintain an even keel… whether they experience the elation of making the team or the disappointment of missing it most of them are coming back tomorrow for another chance, so it’s important that they tend to the ‘regular’ meet things like warming down and such. I was put in charge of Savannah after the 400 and despite conducting three interviews and being congratulated by just about everyone that’s ever met her she was in the warmdown pool 8 minutes after her race. That’s the level of professionalism that it takes to get to this level, and it was really impressive.

We also talked about those swimmers who are not finalists or who are maybe done after 3 or 4 days of this six day meet, and how important it is for them to stay in the meet by swimming and getting to the team meetings and finals sessions. Every little thing makes a difference here, the swimmers who are favourites to make the team don’t use the Metro they have a rental car, just in case. Everyone disinfects their hands before they eat at the team food room… it’s not easy to make the Olympic team so ever little thing becomes important and the effects of your teammates are always there. Someone who’s unable to sleep or rest between prelims and finals could disrupt the rhythm of their roommate and jeopardize their chances.  As an example of how hard it is consider that Annamay Pierse, the Canadian record holder in both the breaststrokes had a good swim just half a second off her record time but only made the team by .41 seconds over the third place swimmer… think about how little that is - less than half a second!
Download psych sheets here.

Live results here.

Swim BC Trials blog is here.

The first night of finals is on the books here in Montreal - some pretty awesome racing. Of course the eyes of all the swimming communities around the world are watching this meet, so there are lots and lots of blogs.

The first two events (Men’s 400 IM and Women’s 400 IM) saw UBCD swimmers take second and gain nomination to the team in each - Brian Johns and Tanya Hunks both got their Olympic selection spot so they are pretty happy. It’s a pretty awesome sight to watch swimmers on your team qualify for the Olympics. For Brian it’s his third time - his first in 2000, at the same pool where both he and I represented Richmond - and for Tanya it’s her first, and although she has plenty of international experience there’s nothing quite like making the Olympic Games. Along with those golden moments there are the heartbreaks - Scott Dickens placed 4th in the 100, Breaststroke despite swimming a time in the preliminaries that would’ve placed him on the team. Because this meet is so long (6 days) and so emotional it’s a real learning experience for both the swimmers and coaches to maintain focus. Even for the swimmers who aren’t in position to make the team it can be difficult to remain collected for their own races while the excitement and rush is going on around them… but if they can learn to deal with it then four years from now they will have another tool to help them gain their own spot on the team.

Megan did not end up swimming the relay tonight; the format of the finals session is; All the ‘A’ finals, a break for all the awards, then all the ‘B’ finals, followed by the relays. So our relay swam at 9pm tonight.

Download psych sheets here.

Live results here.

Swim BC Day One summary here.

Swim BC Trials blog is here.