The Castlegar Aquanauts had a great home swim meet last weekend placing second overall.
A total of 37 athletes attended the meet and all swam incredibly well. The Aquanauts had 71 best times overall and some amazing swims from first year competitors.
Coach Douglas Van Ek said some of the team’s most impressive accomplishments were:
Keegan Zemp 50 butterfly -6 seconds, Simon Larocque 50 butterfly -6 seconds and 100 breaststroke -10 seconds, Claire Cartwright 200 IM -3 seconds, Rome Bennett 50 freestyle -4 seconds, Chason Hartland 50 freestyle -14 seconds and 50 backstroke -23 seconds, Kai Hoodicoff 50 freestyle -13 seconds, Landon McIntosh 50 freestyle -15 seconds, Ayla Hartland 50 backstroke -6 seconds and Skye Hogg 100 freestyle -4 seconds.
Aquanauts medalists were:
Hazel Johnson — Div. 2 Girls Bronze
Avery Cooke — Div. 4 Girls Silver
Andrew Seredynsky — Div. 4 Boys Bronze
Claire Cartwright — Div. 5 Girls Bronze
Ethan Lawczynski — Div. 5 Boys Gold
Keegan Zemp — Div. 5 Boys Bronze
Cayden Cooke — Div. 6 Boys Bronze
Emma Lawczynski — Div. 7 Girls Gold
Meet records broken:
Ethan Lawczynski — Div. 5 Boys 200 IM and Div. 5 Boys 100 Breaststroke
This past week was also the team’s annual Beast Week. This consisted of the hardest training regime for the summer where the athletes were required to attend all practices to earn the title of a Beast Week “survivor.”
“We had many athletes complete this challenge and train extremely hard over the week,” said Van Ek. “None of this week and our home swim meet would have been possible without the immense help of our parent and community volunteers. We are all greatly appreciative of all the work that families, friends and community members did to help the Aquanauts through this past week. All the volunteer work made this past week the success that it was and all our Aquanauts are looking forward to the upcoming meets.”
This coming weekend Aquanauts will be competing in Colville, Wash. Aug. 4-5 will see the team in Trail for the regional championship and those qualifying athletes will be competing in the last meet of the season in Surrey for the BC Summer Swim Association Provincial Championship meet Aug. 17-19.
