With two medals and a slew of new records, the University of Ottawa swim team had a successful meet Feb. 20–22 at the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) national championships at the University of Toronto.
The Gee-Gees sent six women and four men to the championship. On the first day, the team set four new school records and qualified for 10 finals.
Fourth-year Eryn Weldon set a record in the 400-metre individual medley (IM) preliminary, then bested it with a time of 4 minutes 44 seconds 4 milliseconds in the final. Third-year Connor Michie also bested a prelim record in the final for the 100-metre breaststroke with 1 minute 3 seconds 13 milliseconds. First-year Neeley Arnott broke her Gee-Gee record in the 50-metre backstroke final with 29 seconds 90 milliseconds. Weldon, Taylor Moore, Nicole Lachance, and Caitlin Hodge set a record in the 400-metre freestyle relay final of 3 minutes 51 seconds 49 milliseconds.
On the second day, four more U of O records were set. First-year Hodge beat her own Gee-Gees record in the 400-metre freestyle and finished in fifth place with a time of 4 minutes 11 seconds 90 milliseconds. Michie also improved his U of O record in the 200-metre breaststroke preliminary, and then bettered it in the final placing ninth with a time of 2 minutes 15 seconds 59 milliseconds.
Weldon broke her Gee-Gee record in the 200-metre breaststroke final, finishing sixth with a time of 2 minutes 28 seconds 31 milliseconds, and the women’s relay team broke the record in the 800-metre freestyle, finishing seventh with a time of 8 minutes 12 seconds 96 milliseconds.
Despite breaking a few records, it wasn’t until the final day of the CIS national championship that the Gee-Gees began to collect their own set of medals.
Hodge won the silver medal in the 800-metre freestyle with a personal best of 8 minutes 37 seconds 63 milliseconds, missing the gold medal by just over five seconds.
Second-year Robert Bonomo won the bronze in the 200-metre backstroke, beating his preliminary time of 1 minute 57 seconds 2 milliseconds, just over two seconds behind gold medalist Russell Wood swimming for the University of Calgary.
Weldon missed placing in the 200-metre IM by just under half a second, finishing fourth with a Gee-Gees record of 2 minutes 13 seconds 34 milliseconds.
Fifth-year Adam Best finished his U of O swimming career with a program record in the 100-metre freestyle with a time of 49 seconds 55 milliseconds and the 400-metre medley relay with a time of 3 minutes 45 seconds 52 milliseconds.
Last year the team ended the season ranked 13th overall. This year the women’s team finished with an eighth-place ranking, while the men’s team ranked 11th.
