Men’s and women’s swimming teams beat two of three
THE COMPETITION WAS tight as the Gee-Gees faced off against Carleton University, the University of Guelph, and Queen’s University at the quad meet hosted by the University of Ottawa swimming team on Nov. 4. The Gee-Gees fought hard and showcased their aquatic abilities by beating Carleton and Queen’s in team scores, losing to Guelph by a marginal three points on the women’s team 118-115 and 10 points on the men’s 117.5-107.5.
The Gees men’s team won by a large margin against Carleton 148-39 and Queen’s 144-24, while the women’s team scored similarly, 173-28 against Carleton and 166-51 against Queen’s.
According to head coach Claude-Yves Bertrand, the results are more than just about who comes out on top.
“The plan was to look at where they are in their fitness level, not necessarily their times. I wanted to see a pattern of a race and it’s exactly what we saw.”
The meet saw three more swimmers qualify for the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) nationals in February—first-years Eryn Weldon in the 200M individual medley, Nicole Lachance in the 800M freestyle, and Taylor Moore in the 200M backstroke—bringing the total of Gee-Gees who have qualified up to five.
“I was really happy with it,” said Weldon about her racing successes during the meet. “I was faster … and that’s what I was going for tonight.”
“These meets are a bit harder because you don’t get any rest … so we knew it was going to be hard to come into it looking to race as hard as you can [against] more than the times, [but] race [against] the people beside you and everyone around you.”
Weldon has bigger aspirations than just the CIS championships. When asked about her personal goals for the rest of the season, she explained that she wants to improve and possibly make her way to Olympic standards.
“Last year I had some best times,” she said. “This year I want to go even faster— [especially] leading up to Olympic trials— you want to go in with best times and swim fast. And definitely at CIS you want to have some best times there.”
Though it is still early in the swim season, the success of the last few meets are strong indicators of the athlete’s progress as they work to trim time from their personal bests, all in the hopes of qualifying for the CIS.
“Swimming is a strange sport, in the sense that it’s like track and field,” commented Bertrand on the preparation leading up to the meet. “We want them to do well, of course, but we are really paying attention to CIS. You train all that time to [swim] races at CIS in February, so the other races are to check mark where you are in the training.”
Both the men’s and women’s swimming teams will travel to Toronto for a dual meet Nov. 11 at 4:30 p.m.
—Katarina Lukich
