Nanaimo Invitational

UVPCS went up to Nanaimo October 26th-27th for the first short course swim meet of the season, amongst all of the other Vancouver Island teams. Our 65 swimmers took up a good chunk of the 330 swimmers, and had some great swims all around. It served as an assessment for the early season, and showed some big improvements in our younger swimmers, with some great developments in skills and techniques being shown in the pool. Heats were swam mixed gender as a timed final, so there was some fast swimming in each heat.  

Some highlights from the weekend:
Cooper Hunt made Two Tier 1 (BC Provincial Age Group Championships) times in 100m breast (1:38.99) and 200m breast (3:34.98). 
Alex Chen swam his first ever 200m fly, and made a Tier 1 time with 3:16.62 
Bridget Rupert  won the 11/12 100 Freestyle in a time of 1:01.03
Kieran Feenstra won the 11/12 100 Backstroke in 1:22.58 dropping 9.99 of his PB
Adelina Benn won the 12/13 200 Breastroke in 2:54.19 dropping 1.72 of her PB
Noah Hicks won the 10 & Under 100 Butterfly in 1:28.25 dropping 8.13 of his PB
Maya Stevens won the 12.13 200 Butterfly In 2;39.60 dropping 6.71 off her PB
Gavin Gao had an excellent 100m fly, 1:10.04, taking off 2.83 seconds placing 4th in the 13/14 Boys. 

UVic Vikes swam on the Saturday session, with 15 athletes in the water. The younger PCS swimmers enjoyed doing their team cheer with the varsity athletes. A big moment was with UVPCS  Veteran Lauren Crisp (now swimming with the VIkes, racing her younger brother Nolan Crisp (11/12 Boys 100m Backstroke Canadian Record Holder) in the lane next door. Nolan had some quality underwater work, and came out of the start of the race with a 1 meter lead, and held this for the first 50m. Still leading by .7 of a second at the 75m. The last 25 meters is where the race changed, with Lauren, showing her finishing strength still rules the little brother, ending with a .2 victory. A very exciting race that we may get a re-match of at the Xmas Cracker.  

Overall, UVPCS had a great start to the 2019/2020 season! The coaches are driving back to Victoria planning out the next few weeks and getting excited for the next swim meets! Next up is the Sunday Race day Nov 3rd!