Fourteen Williams Lake Blue Fins swimmers made their way to Kelowna this weekend to swim against teams from Vancouver, Calgary and all of the Okanagan.
The meet was a long course (Olympic distance pool) with both heats and finals, so making top eight was the goal in order to get a chance to swim again.
Madison Blusson started off finals on the first night blowing away her competition by six seconds to win the 100 metre breaststroke.
She continued this with the 200-metre breaststroke on the next night beating her competition by more than seven seconds for her second first-place swim of the meet.
On the third night Madison finished up the 50-metre breaststroke to clinch her third win in all three breaststroke events.
Liam McCreight followed suit in the 200-metre breaststroke shortly after, moving himself up two places for a sixth-place finish and his first ever ‘AA’ provincial standard.
He continued this success in the 50-metre freestyle and the 100-metre breaststroke as he made two more ‘AA’ provincial standards and secured himself a spot at ‘AAs’ in Victoria in June.
Liam also finished up eighth in the 100-metre butterfly.
In his 50-metre breaststroke Liam led for most of the race but was narrowly out touched to finish second, his highest placing of the meet.
Gracie Frost also achieved her second ‘AA’ in the 100-metre backstroke and also earned her way to compete at AAs.
Gracie, 10, racing in the 11 and under category, finished up eighth overall in the 100-metre backstroke and 50-metre backstroke and eighth in the 50-metre butterfly.
“These were great swims for her as there was a lot of tough competition in her age group,” said Blue Fins head coach Chad Webb.
Keanna Saunders also swam against the 11 and unders and finished up eighth overall in the 200-metre breaststroke and 50-metre breaststroke and earned her first AA time.
“She will need one more in order to qualify for the meet as she just missed qualifying for AAs in the 200-metre individual medley by less than half a second,” Webb said.
Lief Brandson placed well as a 10 year old in the 11 and under category as he finished up fourth in 50-metre backstroke and eighth in the 200-metre backstroke. He also took 40 seconds off his 400-metre individual medley time to post another ‘AA’ qualifying time.
Ashley Beauchamp had a solid second night as she swam seven swims that day with four finals to move up placings in everything she swam.
With many best times she finished up with fourth in the 400-metre individual medley and the 200-metre individual medley and eighth in the 200-metre breaststroke.
The boys relay team of Landon Christensen, Mitchell Ryan, Leif and Liam placed fifth in both the medley and freestyle relays.
The senior girls with Ashley, Kelsey Blokland, Coral Choi and Geneva Gordon placed eighth in both the medley and the freestyle relay.
Top eight results and notes from the meet are as follows:
David Russell: sixth in 50-metre backstroke, third in the 50-metre freestyle, and a solid 100-metre freestyle improvement.
Landon Christensen: fifth in the 200-metre butterfly and a 42 second improvement in the 200 individual medley.
Coral Choi: seventh in the 200-metre individual medley and a big improvement by two seconds in her last swim of the meet — the 100-metre freestyle.
Kelsey Blokland: Seventh in the 50-metre backstroke and eighth in the 200-metre backstroke.
Isabelle Knox, Mitchell Ryan and Geneva Gordon also had some solid individual swims.
Webb added he was pleased with the results from the meet.
“These were some good results considering that the meet was more of a training meet for the swimmers in preparation for the Kamloops meet at the end of May and ‘AA’ Provincials in June, and ‘AAAs’ in July,” he said.
