Vikes Women Fourth, Men Fifth at CIS

Original Story by Andy Wilson, UVic

CALGARY - Ryan Cochrane was named the CIS male swimmer of the year and CIS rookie of the year on Saturday following competition on the final day of the 2011 CIS swimming championships at the University of Calgary Aquatic Centre.

Cochrane, a 2008 Beijing Olympic medallist and native of Victoria, B.C., won golds in the men's 1500-metre freestyle, 400-metre freestyle and 200-metre freestyle races. Cochrane also won bronze in the men's 400-metre IM. He guided the UVic men to a fifth-place finish with 244.5 points. The Vikes women were in fourth spot with 227.5 points.

"It's a completely different environment, you've got an awesome level of support here between all teammates. The camaraderie here between all of us was good. And it's great for the sport to have the place packed with a loud crowd," Cochrane said. "It was a really good environment to swim in, especially when you're standing on the box for relays."

"I'm pleased with my performances here. And I'm pretty tired, too," Cochrane said with a laugh, noting the higher altitude presents challenges with fatigue. "It's a tough three days. When I'm tired when I go back to training next week, it will be a good reminder to me of why it (the training) is so important."

Other Day 3 medallists were Hilary Caldwell who won the gold in the women's 200-metre backstroke (2:08.22), Stephanie Horner who earned silver in the women's 800-metre freestyle (8:44.72) and bronze in the women's 200-metre IM (2:16.13) and Nick Sinclair who won bronze in the men's 200-metre backstroke (1:59.47). All four Vikes medallists are national-calibre swimmers.

"The most important thing for all the kids at that (elite) level is trying to win without really getting out of your preparation cycle for the international calendar," said Vikes swimming head coach Peter Vizsolyi. "I think when you can do that that's your goal to come and be able to compete without disruption to your overall training schedule."

"We haven't been in the top five for a while and I think historically we've had a lot of top-five finishes on both sides. So I think it's good to get back to that level," Vizsolyi said. "You are never going to get in the top five unless your bottom end is scoring and getting into the consolation finals and scoring points. And that turned out to be especially important in the fact the women's relay got disqualified and we ended up with the fourth spot by three-and-a-half points."

Cochrane said he was happy for the entire Vikes team with their overall performance and looks forward to a great future for the UVic program.

"It's great as long as we're continuing to move up and hopefully can get up to the Top 3 in the future with some good recruits," Cochrane said.

FINAL RESULTS: http://www.godinos.com/custompages/Statistics/Live/SWIM/hytek/
CHAMPIONSHIP WEB SITE: http://english.cis-sic.ca/championships/swim/index

Horner's 800-metre silver-medal performance was impressive on the first night of the race. Shwas just a body length behind gold-medallist and national record holder Savannah King of UBC, the CIS rookie of the meet, but the Thunderbirds swimmer found another gear three-quarters of the way through the race to pull away, eventually winning by just over nine seconds.