Featuring more than 100 swimmers from Williams Lake, Prince George and Quesnel, the aptly titled Williams Lake Blue Fins Frost Fest was a huge success.
“It went really well,” said Blue Fins coach Marilyn Haines. “We did have some Prince George families that didn’t make it because of the weather, though.”
The swim meet, held at the Sam Ketcham Memorial Pool from Friday, Jan. 14 to Sunday, Jan. 16, saw several Blue Fins achieve personal bests, club records and provincial qualifying times.
Kelsey Blokland set a new club record in the 1,500-metre freestyle for 11- and 12-year-old girls, while David Russell set a qualifying time good even to grant him a berth to the ‘AA’ provincials in February in Chilliwack. Kara Zavitz also posted a single-A provincial qualifying time.
On Sunday, the top six boys and girls swimmers from Saturday’s 200-metre individual medley were pitted against one another for a 100-metre individual medley cash race for bragging rights between the Prince George Barracudas and the Williams Lake Blue Fins.
On the boys’ side, Blue Fin Patrick Verbeeck took the gold, while fellow Blue Fin Jeremy Zwiers claimed silver. David Sikli (a Quesnel swimmer who races with the Blue Fins) nabbed bronze.
For the girls’ cash race, Blue Fin Tracey Beauchamp raced to a gold medal, while sister Ashley Beauchamp took bronze.
Aggregate winners for the boys’ 15 and over division were Verbeeck (gold) and Zwiers (silver). In the girls’ 15 and over division it was another Blue Fins sweep with Tracey taking gold, Kiah Wallace-Webb winning silver and Abbi Taylor taking bronze.
Haines said she was extremely pleased with her club’s performance at the meet.
“We now have a dozen kids qualified for the AA Championships coming up in Chilliwack in the middle of February,” she said.
Haines added the next month will be extremely busy for the local swim club. First, several young Blue Fins will be heading off to Kamloops for a developmental swim meet from Feb. 5-6. Then, from Feb. 11-13, the AA Championships go in Chilliwack. Following that, the club hosts another home meet from Feb. 25-27.
Aggregate winners in the 13 and 14 year old and the 11 and 12 year old categories were not available at press time. See a future Tribune for results.
