Winskill Dolphins Swim Club

Tomorrow is the first day of the 2008 Age-Group Nationals here in Calgary, Alberta. Our 11 Winskill swimmers make up one third of the 33 member UBC Dolphin squad. Last year we had five swimmers here at the meet, who brought home one bronze medal and had four swims in finals. Our team goal this year is at least one gold, eight medals and 18 finals swims - if we succeed that would be a significant improvement over 2007!

Swimming Canada have posted the psych sheets for the meet. We have several swimmers seeded well in their events;

Karyn Jewell - 1st seed in the 1500m Freestyle, 2nd seed in the 400m Individual Medlay
Caitlin Quon - 2nd seed in the 200m Backstroke and 200m and 400m Individual Medlay
McKenzie Summers - 3rd seed in the 50m Backstroke, 5th seed in the 100m Backstroke
Meghan Kwiatkowski - 4th seed in the 50m Freestyle and 50m Backstroke
Alyssa von Ende - 9th seed in the 100m Butterfly
Micaela Kwiatkowski - 9th seed in the 200m Breaststroke
Nick Quenville - 9th seed in the 400m Freestyle

To make the finals at night, and have the chance to win a medal, the swimmers must place in the top 8 in their age-group during the preliminary heats in the morning.

Check back here often in the next five days as we will update the site frequently with the latest results. Our swimmers will be chasing many goals, everything from best times to records and placings.

Live results will be available here from Swimming Canada.

Swimmers compete in specific age-groups for spots in the finals and their national rankings. For boys the age-groups are; 13 & Under, 14, 15, 16, 17-18. The girls compete in 12 & Under, 13, 14, 15, 16-18 year old age-groups.

This week is our final team trip of the season - the 2008 Age-Group Nationals in Calgary, AB. We have 11 swimmers here ready to compete starting on Thursday, July 24th. The pool competition continues until Sunday the 27th, then the openwater races are on Monday the 28th.
Swimming Canada have posted the psych sheets for the meet. Check out your or your teammates placings prior to the event!

Caitlin Quon was selected today for the annual Team BC Far Westerns trip to San Jose, California. The selection was made from the top two points scoring swims for each age-group and gender from April 1st until July 7th in Long Course pools. Caitlin was selected for her 200 Freestyle at last weekend’s Provincial Championships. Her 2:12.14 was 700 FINA points and got her the second place selection spot for 13 year old girls.

Congratulations Caitlin!

Honourable mention goes to Karyn Jewell who narrowly missed the cut for the 14 year old girls.

This past weekend’s Provincial Championships were an awesome success for our WDSC swimmers. We set 25 WDSC club records, bringing our total for the year so far to 183… with one more meet to go (Age-Group Nationals in Calgary, AB) maybe we can get up to 200 for the year.

We had eleven athletes come home with medals;

Gold Medalists:
Caitlin Quon (SIX) (200-400-800 Free, 200-400 IM, 100 Back)
Luke Reilly (FOUR) (4x 50 Free, 4x 50 Medley, 4x 100 Free, 1.5km openwater)
Meghan Kwiatkowski (FOUR) 4x 50 Free, 4x 50 Medley, 4x 100 Free, 1.5km openwater)
Vito Zou (THREE) (4x 50 Free, 4x 50 Medley, 4x 100 Free)
McKenzie Summers (THREE) (4x 50 Free, 4x 50 Medley, 4x 100 Free)
Morgan Mackenzie (ONE) (200 Fly)
Karyn Jewell (ONE) (3km openwater)

Silver Medalists:
Morgan Mackenzie (FOUR) (100 Back, 4x 50 Free, 4×100 Free, 4x 50 Medley)
Caitlin Quon (FOUR) (200 Back, 4x 50 Free, 4×100 Free, 4x 50 Medley)
McKenzie Summers (THREE) (400 IM, 100 Back, 200 Breast)
Karyn Jewell (THREE) (200 Free, 200-400 IM)
Luke Reilly (TWO) (1500 Free, 400 IM)
Nunu Singh (TWO) (50 Free, 50 Fly)
Meghan Kwiatkowski (TWO) (400-800 Free)
Megan Clark (ONE) (4×50 Free)
Micaela Kwiatkowski (ONE) 4x 50 Medley)

Bronze Medalists:
Meghan Kwiatkowski (THREE) (50-100-200 Free)
Mackenzie Summers (THREE) (200 IM, 100 Breast, 200 Back)
Luke Reilly (TWO) (200 IM, 200 Breast)
Morgan Mackenzie (TWO) (100 Free, 100 Fly)
Vito Zou (ONE) (100 Free)
Nunu Singh (ONE) (200 IM)
Micaela Kwiatkowksi (ONE) (100 Breast)
Karyn Jewell (ONE) (800 Free)
Nick Quenville (ONE) (5km openwater)

Finalists:
Colette Summers (100-200 Breast)
Alyssa von Ende (100 Breast, 100 Fly)
Meghan Quon (200 Breast)

We had club records set by the following swimmers:
Nunu Singh (10 & Under age-group 50 Free, 400 Free, 200 Back, 50 Fly, 200 Fly, 200 IM)
Mckenzie Summers (11-12 age-group 100-200 Back, 400 IM, 50-100 Fly, 100 Breast)
Meghan Kwiatkowski (11-12 age-group 50-100-200 Free
Luke Reilly (11-12 age-group 50-100-200 Breast, 800 Free, 200 Back)
Karyn Jewell (13-14 age-group 200 IM)
Morgan Mackenzie (13-14 age-group 100 Free, 100 Back)

We had UBC Dolphin records set by the following swimmers
Luke Reilly (11-12 4×50 Medley Relay, 4×100 Free Relay)
Vito Zou (11-12 4×50 Medley Relay, 4×100 Free Relay)
Meghan Kwiatkowski (11-12 4×100 Free Relay)
Mackenzie Summers (11-12 4×100 Free Relay)

Congratulations to all those swimmers who competed at the meet, those going onto the Age-Group Nationals in Calgary, AB they will train for another 2.5 weeks before competing against the best swimmers in the country in their age category.

After most of the competitors at the summer provincial championships went home the toughest swimmers stayed on for another day of competition, this time out at Albert Dyck Park in Abbotsford for the openwater championships.

WDSC swimmers completely dominated the event winning three out of the six age-groups!

In the 12 & U girls Meghan Kwiatkowski took a decisive victory over the field, with Mckenzie Summers in a tight race with only 20 seconds seperating 3rd through 7th. Luke Reilly won the 12 & U boys by a minute, and Karyn Jewell completely dominated the 13-14 girls 3km swim - winning by over 2 1/2 minutes! In the senior boys category Nick Quenville took the bronze medal while Elliott Lee placed in 7th position in what was the toughest race of the morning - the first 7 swimmers stayed together for the first 3km of the 5km before the pace picked up and started shedding swimmers off the back of the pod.

For complete results from the day check here.

After the first day of the 2008 LC Provincial Championships our Winskill squad are proving that they are a force to be reckoned with – 7 different swimmers from the squad swam to individual medals, with several of those setting new club marks in the process.

The first event was the 11 & Under 800m Freestyle, where Nunu Singh swam to a 12th place finish, just missing the WDSC club record. In the 12 year old event McKenzie Summers also registered 12th place overall and Meghan Kwiatkowski took a Silver medal with a big best time of 10:14.25. Meghan’s time qualifies her to swim the event at the Age-Group National championships held later this month in Calgary, AB.

On the boy’s side Luke Reilly took the Silver medal with another massive best time of 18:43.81. Luke’s 800m split also qualified him to race the event in Calgary, and re-set his own club mark at 9:54.56.

The 100m Freestyle was the next event on the program and Meghan Kwiatkowski was back up again swimming to a Bronze medal performance with a new best time and club record of 1:04.25. Up in the next heat – the 13 year old girls – was Morgan Mackenzie who smashed her previous best time and the club record swimming to a 1:02.94 clocking; also good for the Bronze medal. On the boy’s side Luke Reilly was back up only a few minutes after his 1500 and swam to a 1:06 for 6th place. Vito Zou also swam in the 12 year old boy final and snatched the Bronze medal in a very close race with a big PB at 1:02.58. Vito finished just .36 seconds off first place.

In the 400 IM we had four swimmers up – McKenzie Summers swam a great race building up a giant lead on the third place swimmer before coming within .06 seconds with that athlete at the end of the race. McKenzie’s Silver medal winning time was also a new club record. In the 13 year old girl’s final Caitlin Quon dominated the competition swimming off with an 8 second margin of victory to clock a 5:11.25. On the 14 year old’s Karyn Jewell raced to 2nd place. Over on the boy’s end Luke Reilly again swam to a Silver in the longer race.

The final individual event of the evening saw some great head-to-head WDSC battles as Meghan Kwiatkowski and McKenzie Summers went at it in the 100m Backstroke finishing 4th and 2nd respectively. McKenzie’s best time was also a new club record at 1:13.65. In the next heat we had another head-to-head WDSC race with Morgan Mackenzie and Caitlin Quon battling it out for 1st and 2nd. The two training mates flipped at the same time at the 50m turn before coming stroke for stroke into the finish. Caitlin took the win with a 1:08.92 over Morgan’s 1:09.19. Both of these girls finished a huge 2.5 seconds ahead of the rest of the BC field! Vito Zou raced the final of the 12 year old boy’s sprint backstroke finishing in 8th with a 1:17 clocking, just off his best 1:16 from the morning prelims.

Our UBC Dolphin group has a solid points buffer after the individual events, but then with the relays we added another large points score. Our 12 & Under girls relays finished 1st (featuring both Meghan Kwiatkowski and Mckenzie Summers) and 8th (with Nunu Singh on anchor), while the boys (with Vito Zou and Luke Reilly) also touched in first spot. In the 13-14 girls Karyn Jewell’s team finished in 8th spot while Morgan Mackenzie and Caitlin Quon teamed up with their UBCD teammates to finish in 2nd overall.

Winskill Medalists from the first day of competition are;

Gold Medalists:
Caitlin Quon (400 IM, 100 Back)
Vito Zou (4x 50 Free)
Luke Reilly (4x 50 Free)
McKenzie Summers (4x 50 Free)
Meghan Kwiatkowski (4x 50 Free)

Silver Medalists:
Meghan Kwiatkowski (800 Free)
McKenzie Summers (400 IM, 100 Back)
Morgan Mackenzie (100 Back, 4x 50 Free)
Luke Reilly (1500 Free, 400 IM)
Karyn Jewell (400 IM)
Caitlin Quon (4x 50 Free)

Bronze Medalists:
Meghan Kwiatkowski (100 Free)
Morgan Mackenzie (100 Free)
Vito Zou (100 Free)

Check back here often during the weekend for updates from the meet.

Live results are available through Swim BC here.

Psych sheets for the meet are available here.

Tomorrow morning the floodgates open on Watermania and 670 of our provinces best swimmers will compete in the 2008 LC Provincial Championships.

We have 18 of our Dolphins competing as UBCD this weekend, which is equal to the number we had at the SCM version. During the Spring short course meet we had 13 of those make finals, and 5 win medals, including McKenzie Summers, Karyn Jewell and Morgan Mackenzie who won gold as Provincial Champions.

The meet will be the final chance for our swimmers to qualify for the 2008 Team BC Far Westerns trip - we have several swimmers looking to make a spot on that team for a trip to California in August.

The meet runs at Watermania Thursday through Sunday, and is followed on Monday by the openwater competition in Abbotsford. We have 6 swimmers competing in the openwater event including Karyn Jewell who took the Bronze medal at the 2007 Age-Group National openwater event in Montreal, QC. All of our openwater swimmers swam on July 1st at the Canada Day swim and 4 of the 6 swam in the Team BC openwater camp so they are already quite experienced this year. The entry list for the openwater competition is available here.

Check back here often during the weekend for updates from the meet.

Live results are available through Swim BC here.<fixed link>

Psych sheets for the meet are available here.

What a a beautiful Canada Day! The weather was perfect for the 2008 Sasamat Lake Canada Day challenge and our Winskill swimmers stepped out the Port Moody lake for a quick dip and some fun racing.

Nick Quenville and Karyn Jewell came home as king and queen of the lake as they took the overall titles in the premier event - the 4km openwater swim. All of our swimmers placed very well with the results as follows;

4km - Male
1st - Nick Quenville (1st 15-19)
2nd - Tom Rushton (1st 25-29)
6th - Elliott Lee (2nd 15-19)

4km - Female
1st - Karyn Jewell (1st 14 & Under)
6th - Meghan Kwiatkowski (2nd 14 & Under)
14th - McKenzie Summers (3rd 14 & Under)
32nd - Sam Goski (1st 40-44)

2km - Male
7th - Taylor Costa (1st 15-19)
9th - Luke Reilly (1st 14 & Under)

1km - Male
7th - Mike Ma (1st 15-19)

1km - Female
4th - Micaela Kwiatkowski (1st 14 & Under)
5th - Alyssa von Ende (2nd 14 & Under)

Check out pictures from the event here.

Check out the full results below;
Open Water Swim Canada Day Challenge, Port Moody, BC

Congratulations to everyone that came out - for many of the swimmers it was their first openwater race and they all did a great job, and had a great time, what a great way to celebrate Canada Day with a beautiful backdrop of pine forest. Starting on Thursday our swimmers are competing in the 2008 LC Provincial Championships before preparing for their most important event of the season - the 2008 Age-Group National Championships in Calgary, AB.

We had a great turnout this year for the year end bbq, hopefully next year we can get some more regional / conditioning and technique families out and bridge the gap in the middle of the club. We had about 100 people at Centennial Beach - parents, swimmers and siblings. There was good food, awesome weather and a super-dooper scavenger hunt.

For the scavenger hunt the swimmers were divided into six teams, each of which had a digital camera and a list of things to take pictures of, as well as some objects to bring back to the camp. The teams were;

Team 1 - Elliott Lee, Meghan Quon, Caitlin Quon, Vito Zou, Matt Lock, Alicia Farquharson
Team 2 - Brittany Imlach, Sam Bohmert, Micaela Kwiatkowski, Nunu Singh, Tai-long SIngh, Sam Mayes
Team 3 - Nick Quenville, Karyn Jewell, Meghan Kwiatkowski, McKenzie Summers, Colette Summers, Eva Schwartz
Team 4 - Megan Clark, Beau Matheson, Alyssa von Ende, Declan Easton, Maia Christian
Team 5 - Taylor Costa, Stefanie Serka, Luke Reilly, Chase McDonald, Clarissa Mayes, Taylor Reilly
Team 6 - Danielle Mageau, Brittany Mageau, Mike Ma, Eleanor Hawkins, Christina Coburn

(Click the team to see the pictures they took)

The teams had to take the following pictures (click to see the pictures from each team).

Get a PICTURE of at least one member of your team in each of the following situations:
1) Wearing a crown of sea-weed
2) Kissing a crab
3) Hiding under a bridge
4) Making each of a W, I, N, S, K, L with part or all of their body
5) Feeding a bird (bonus point if the bird has landed on you in the picture)
6) Buried in the sand
7) Spiking a volleyball
8) Blowing a gum bubble
9) Teaching a tourist how to read a map of the park
10) Running through a flock of ducks

Get a PICTURE of the following:
11) A WDSC logo/advertisement you have created out of natural materials
12) As many team members as you can stack in a ‘pyramid’
13) A wild mammal (Raccoon, rabbit, etc.)
14) All members of your team in a team picture
15) The 49th parallel
16) At least 4 members of your team posing on the playground equipment
17) A picture of as much of the park as possible from the wildlife lookout

It was a tight race between Teams 1, 2 and 4 with Team 2 winning the pictures 62 - 57, however overall Team 1 took the victory by bringing in the longest piece of Kelp, which was a 5 point bonus… overall they scored 9 points on the items to Team 2’s 3 points which took them to a 1 point victory 66 - 65.

For all the pictures from the team BBQ click here. Thanks to all the families who brought food, plates and cooking equipment.

In the next few days there will be a lot of fast swimming around the North America - the US Olympic Trials begin on June 29th, which will be pretty amazing, and of course we have the Sasamat openwater swim, as well as the AAA Provincial Championships and Provincial openwater championships coming up.

Hopefully everyone is already signed up for the July 1st Canada Day Swim at Sasamat Lake in Port Moody. For those of you who aren’t sure how to get there check out these directions from the tunnel. Scope out your competition for the event on the confirmation list here.

Of course we have the AAA Provincial Championships coming up next weekend (actually July 3-6) at Watermania in Richmond. Swim BC. Swim BC sent out a preliminary psych sheet today, which will give you a good indication of where you sit. Some other information regarding the distance swims is in their email;

“Team Aquatic Supplies BC Long Course AAA Championships

This is probably one of the largest BC Champs ever held, as with all the entries now in, we’re looking at 670 swimmers in the meet. So, on the plus side, kudos to the coaches and their swimmers who, despite time standards getting faster, got faster yet, so that we now have more AAA swimmers in BC than at any time in recent memory. On the down side, mind you, it’s going to make for a big meet.

With that said, though, we’re quite confident that the layout of events and with us making a few adjustments, that the meet should still provide a great competitive experience for the swimmers.

The good news: all swimmers entered in the 400, 800, and 1500 free events will get to swim those events.

The (slightly) bad news: a handful of swimmers in the Senior Age Group will have to swim their 800 or 1500 a day earlier than scheduled. Also, after discussion among meet management and with the BCSCA, the decision was made to swim the 400m Free events TWO PER LANE. This will shave approximately 90 minutes from the length of the Sunday prelims session. (And just as a reminder, all but the top four swimmers in each single-year age – who will be swimming at night in Finals – will swim two per lane for the 800 and 1500 free as well.)

Now, as for the 400 IM events, unfortunately, those swimmers NOT making the qualifying standard in this event will not be able to swim the 400 IM; they will instead have the opportunity to enter a 50, 100, or 200m event in its place. Coaches are to re-do their entry files for those swimmers (highlighted in yellow on the 400IM events on the attached psych sheets). These revised entry files have to re-submitted to the meet entries chairperson no later than this Friday, June 27, at 6:00pm. This should save at least 45 minutes from the Thursday prelims session.

Speaking of the prelims sessions, we should be completely finished the prelims sessions – including any relay heats and/or distance events – each day shortly after 2:00pm….not too bad. The finals sessions are set to run until around 8:00pm (give or take 10-15 minutes) each night.

The host Richmond Rapids are making lots of plans to make this a great event, with a number of measures being put into place to ensure that the meet runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible, with every opportunity for great racing and great performances. Details will be provided both online as well as via email, so be sure to keep checking your email and the Swim BC website home page through the long weekend as we lead into the meet.”

In other parts of North America (Omaha, NB to be exact), there’s another swim meet starting this weekend, and going through to July 6th. Team USA showed off their new Beijing LZR Racer suits for the press this morning, and they are quite nice looking, and probably pretty quick also. The US Olympic Trials is generally one of the fastest meets in the world - in some cases events might be FASTER THAN THE ACTUAL OLYMPICS - that is for instance in the Men’s 200m Backstroke where Micheal Phelps, the third fastest swimmer ever in the event is seeded… third! Remember that only two swimmers from each country get to go, so it’s going to be a pretty intense meet. Psych sheets for this are available here and are pretty spectacular to look at.

Live timing for the meet will be available here, with daily television coverage on the NBC and USA networks.

For a measure of how fast swimming is this year, check out these top 25 all time LCM rankings for both male and female swimmers - quite a few of these swims are from this year, and we haven’t even made it to the two fastest meets yet! (US Trials and the Olympic Games)