Eight Warriors traveled across the country this past week to compete at the U SPORTS Swimming Championship in Victoria, BC. Waterloo had 5 participants qualify from the men's team, and 3 from the women's.
At the end of the weekend the men finished in 12th and the women came in 17th.
Day 1
Day 1 started off with two women qualifying for finals in the 50 backstroke, third year
Eloise Ladyman (Kamloops/) (30.39) finished in 12th and fourth year
Lou Salome Chou (Versailles/) (31.27) finished 22nd.
Peter Li (Oakville/) (27.91) also swam the 50 backstroke earlier in the day during prelims, though he missed qualifying for finals he managed to swim a new personal best time.
Later that day Waterloo had a third women qualify,
Christina Ji (Oakville/) (1:15.12), swam the 100 breaststroke where she finished 20th in finals. Two men followed Christina in to the 100 breaststroke finals that night,
Ian Chambers (Burlington/) (1:06.24) who finished 18th and
Jake Gu (Markham/) (1:07.23) who finished 23rd.
The last individual event of the night was the 100 butterfly, in which second year
Lukas Wormald (Kitchener/) (56.61) qualified for finals and finished in 14th.
The final event of the evening was the 4x100 freestyle relay. The men's relay was led off by
Peter Li (Oakville/) (53.58), followed by
Hohyun Ryu (Richmond Hill/) (53.18), then
Ian Chambers (Burlington/) (55.71), and closed off by
Lukas Wormald (Kitchener/) (53.49). The men managed to finish in 13th, narrowly touched out by University of Alberta.
Day 2
Friday night finals were off to a good start after a fast morning of swimming!
Eloise Ladyman (Kamloops/) (1:05.55) led off the Warriors in the 100 backstroke, finishing 13th.
Later in the session second year
Lukas Wormald (Kitchener/) (25.43) swam the 50 butterfly where he won his finals heat and finished in 9th overall.
Hohyun Ryu (Richmond Hill/) (26.25) also swam the 50 butterfly earlier in the day, though he did not manage to snag a spot in finals he went a best time in the event by over a half-second.
The Warriors were well represented later in the night when second years
Jake Gu (Markham/) (2:27.54) and
Ian Chambers (Burlington/) (2:25.40) swam in the same heat for the 200 breaststroke finals. Chamber out-touched Gu in the final stretch, he finished 15th and Gu in 16th.
Later in the night we seemed to almost have déjà vu when second year
Lukas Wormald (Kitchener/) (24.05) just out touched fourth year
Peter Li (Oakville/) (24.15) for 12th place in the 50 freestyle. There were also some notable swims in this event earlier in the prelims session, specifically, second year
Christina Ji (Oakville/) (27.50) swam a best time in the event but sadly couldn't claim a spot in that night's finals for the event.
Day 3
The final day of the championships opened up with the men's 50 breaststroke. The Warriors were well represented with
Jake Gu (Markham/) (30.63) coming in 15th and
Ian Chambers (Burlington/) (30.54) finishing in 20th. In his morning swim, Ian also managed to drop almost a half second in this event. Later in finals this was followed shortly by the women's event where second year
Christina Ji (Oakville/) (33.64) finished in 10th.
Later in the evening backstroker
Eloise Ladyman (Kamloops/) (2:22.83) finished in 19th in the 200 backstroke.
Lou Salome Chou (Versailles/) (2:25.25) didn't manage to claim a spot in the evening's finals, but she had an excellent swim in the 200 during prelims where she dropped 2 seconds.
This was followed quickly by teammate
Lukas Wormald (Kitchener/) (2:07.87) finishing in 7th in the 200 individual medley.
The meet was concluded with the 4x100 medley relay where our men managed to claim a 12th place spot, finishing neck and neck with Acadia University who just out-touched them for 11th. The relay was led off by
Lukas Wormald (Kitchener/) (59.54) in the backstroke, followed up by
Ian Chambers (Burlington/) (1:06.29) swimming breaststroke, up next was
Hohyun Ryu (Richmond Hill/) (57.70) in the butterfly, and the anchor was
Peter Li (Oakville/) (53.12) who finished it all up with the freestyle leg.
