The Greater Trail Stingrays opened their competitive swim season with some sparkling results in the Trail Aquatic Centre on the weekend.
The club hosted seven teams for a hectic weekend full of great results in their home pool.
“We had a fantastic first meet,” said coach Samme Beatson. “We posted 76 personal-best times.”
On top of some personal achievements, several swimmers flirted with meet records including Sharman Thomas who beat the 100m butterfly meet record by two seconds and the 100m backstroke meet record by three seconds in the Open category.
Diego Greenwood was a fraction of the second off the meet record in the 100m backstroke for his age group.
Other notable performances saw Katie Mountain swim 28 seconds faster than last year in the 50m backstroke, and 17 seconds faster in the 50m freestyle.
Not to be outdone on a weekend of personal bests, Olivia Bruce swam 28 seconds faster than her best time in the 100m freestyle, and Juliana Zhou swam 20 seconds faster in her 100m freestyle race as well.
Meanwhile Kiri Steven shaved 18 seconds off her 50m freestyle event and completed a perfect swim in the 50m breaststroke.
Six Stingrays notched aggregate awards during the meet.
Maddy Fraser and Paige Marrandino tied for second place in Division 2 girls. Juliana Zhou placed third in Division 4 girls.
Greenwood tied for first place with a swimmer from the Grand Forks Swim Club. Logan Blair placed second in Division 6 boys.
Thomas, a TRAX swimmer who registered with the Stingrays for the swim meet placed first in the second Open category.
Beatson explained the Open category in the BC Summer Swimming Association-sanctioned meets is a division for swimmers who compete on a different team (a Swim BC team) year round and so may have more training hours than the summer swimmers.
The Stingrays coach also had special praise for Avery Zanussi, Ryder Tymchyshyn, Alex Mountain, and Scarlet Guy on their first swim meet.
