PRESS RELEASE: SWIMMING

WESTERN CANADIAN CHAMPIONSHIPS WINNIPEG - DAY 4

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WINNIPEG (19 FEBRUARY 2012) - The Cascade Swim Club has won the 2012 Western Canadian Championships for the third year in a row! This marks the first time any team has won the overall team banner three times in a row at the Western Canadian Championships after Cascade took the 2010, 2011 and now 2012 team titles.

200 Free

Up first was another perennially strong event for the Cascade club after winning both the men's and women's 4x200 Free Relays you had to know we would place a lot of swimmers into the finals tonight - and we did with 12 swimmers in the finals garnering six medals including a 1-2-3 sweep of the podium in the girls open race (GOLD - Kevyn Peterson; SILVER - Brooklynn Snodgrass; BRONZE - Tyra Rooney) and a 1-2 finish on the boys youth side (GOLD - Scott McGillivray; SLVER - Anthony Lyons).

Peterson: 28.0 30.2 (58.2) 30.7 (158.9)  30.6 (1:59.72)

Snodgrass: 28.1 30.6 (58.7) 30.9 (1:29.6)  31.1 (2:00.80)

Sproule: 29.2 30.0 (59.2) 30.7 (1:29.9)  30.4 (2:01.39)

Scott McGiilivray's GOLD medal swim was just 5/10ths of a second off of the Provincial Record held by his Cascade teammate, Chad Bobrosky, set last December before he went on to make the World Championships team in the Spring.

McGillivray: 25.0 27.2 (52.2) 27.8 (1:20.0)  27.4 (1:47.56)

Lyons: 26.0 28.2 (54.2) 28.7 (1:23.0)  28.3 (1:51.35)

Russell Wood also managed a silver medal in a new lifetime best time in the open category with his 1:48.95

100 Breast

Kelsey Crocker picked up her second breaststroke medal of the weekend with her 1:12.56 in the 100 after making nationals for the first time earlier in the meet in the 200. Of note on the men's side - distance swimmer (usually) - Dustin Warrack stretched his wings a little bit coming down to race the men's sprint 100 in the breast - picking up the fourth place spot in 1:04.44 and qualifying to swim this event later next month at the Olympic Trials.

200 IM

Ken Stairs (2:06.15) and Adam Maybury (2:05.07) both picked up BRONZE medals respectively in the youth and open category while their teammate Russell Wood blasted to GOLD in the open category in 2:00.32 in a great head to head race with David Dimitrov from the liquid lightning. Dimitrov had almost a full second on Wood at the 50 but Canada's national record holder in the 15-17 100 back easily made up that distance on the backstroke leg and had a slight advantage going on to the breaststroke. Wood managed to out split Dimitrov by a few 10ths in the breast and a matching leg in the freestyle gave Wood a 7/10th victory at the end of the race. Russell also won the male high point of the meet award. 

50 Back

When Brooklynn Snodgrass and Chantal Vanlegeham meet in the backstroke sprints mountains collide and the victor usually only walks away a few short 100ths ahead of the other and tonight was no different. Coming into the final Snodgrass was seeded 4/100ths of a second ahead of the MANTA swimmer - and guess where they finished…with Snodrgass ahead by 4/100ths! 28.16 to 28.20.

On the boys side Russell Wood won his second GOLD of the night in 25.50.

100 Fly

Scott McGillivray raced a great meet and finished off his individual swims with a bronze medal in the 100 fly in a time of 56.53. Fly hasn't been the focal point as much with his training leading in to this event but like all good swimmers Scott is able to diversify when called on and did a great job here to swim 26.4/30.1 and pick up the bronze. Scott's teammate Kevin Nelson also picked up BRONZE on the open side of the meet with his 55.78 swim (26.4/29.3). Both swims for the two Cascade boys were new lifetime best times.

800 Free

Tyra Rooney swam an 8:48 to win this event last year in her final year as a swimmer in the youth category and in her first year in the open category picked up a BRONZE medal in 8:45.23 (4:22.4/4:22.8) - a textbook performance on pacing the 800.

1500 Free

Sean Penhale continues his Olympic Trial preparation and looks to be in fine form after winning the open field in this one in 15:17.29. Sean and Eric Hedlin from Island Swimming went head to head to the whole race with Penhale inching away from just past the 500 mark and holding a two second advantage over the remaining 1000m.

4x100 Medley Relay

The last event of the night as it is with all major national and international events was the 4x100 Medley Relay. Cascade had come into Day 4 having won all the men's and women's relays so far and was looking for a clean sweep in the last event of the program.

The girls came ever so close with Brooklynn Snodgrass (1:00.27 - Back), Kelsey Crocker (1:12.94 - breast), Emma Sproule (1:02.92 - Fly) and Kevyn Peterson (56.11 - Free) getting to the silver in 4:12.24 - just 5/10ths of a second behind the OSC team. 

The boys team did however manage to keep the streak alive with the "A" team of Russell Wood (Back), Ken Stairs (Breast), Thomas Jobin (Fly) and Scott McGillivray (Free) taking the GOLD while their "B" team teammates managed to pick up the BRONZE.

"A" Team: Wood 54.94 Stairs 1:03.97 Jobin 54.83 McGillivray 50.57

Total 3:44.31

"B" Team: Maybury 56.40 Warrack 1:06.10 Nelson 55.94 Kendrick        50.79

Total 3:49.23

In summary Cascade had 2 new national qualifiers, 4 new Provincial Records, 1 new Canadian National Record and 50 medals all the while winning the overall and men's team banners!

Points Rankings

Men

1. Cascade 1520

2. MANTA         511

3. SFU 415

4. ISLAND         369

5. OSC 310

Women

1. OSC 1026

2. MANTA         813.5

3. Cascade 769

4. EKSC         502

5. PGB 489

Overall

1. Cascade 2546

2. OSC 1336

3. Manta         1324.5

Live results link: https://swimming.ca/liveresults/12speedowestern/