2002-2003

The University of Victoria swim team joined with other PCS teammates to compete at the Colleges Cup in Vancouver and had some excellent performances. With the smallest team entered in the competition the team pulled together to finish in 3^rd place over all on the men's side and in fifth on the women's. For this competition the Vikes teamed up with Pacific Coast Swimming athletes John Stamhuis, Karley Stutzel and Christin Petelski to form the Victoria team entry.

A large portion of the PCS National / Varsity group competed at the first BC Senior Circuit meet of the 2002 - 2003 season. The BC Senior Circuit is composed of three meets culminating at the BC Senior Championships in February 2003. Athletes earn series points for placing in the top 16 in each event at the three meets with prize money being awarded in six separate categories (Sprint Free, Distance Free, Backstroke, Breaststroke, Butterfly and IM) for both male and female.

Pacific Coast had it's first meet and it was great! We had 25 swimmers with all their new t-shirts and caps on. Everyone had a great time and swam really well for the first meet of the year. We had five of our coaches come and check out the action and help to coach the swimmers at all levels. All in all it was a good experience for all the PCS swimmers who attended. We even came home with two bags of ribbons mostly blue! (the coaches favorite color). Swimmers can check the results out on the web in the next few days.

Karley Stutzel came off a tough race series at the 2002 World Open Water Swimming Championships to place 4th overall at the final FINA Open Water World Cup stop in Alexandria, Egypt. Her time of 2:14.04 was a mere 8 seconds behind the overall winner.

Dave Creel who had also just finished the 5km and 10km races at the World Championships also competed at the World Cup stop and finished his 10km race in a time of 2:04.44 good enough for eighth position overall and only 4 seconds behind 3rd place.

The 10 km World Open Water Championship race took place in Egypt yesterday and Pacific Coast swimmers David Creel and Karley Stutzel both took part and finished strong in a tough world class field. On the women's side the event was extremely close as only three one hundredths of a second separated the top two competitors. Pacific Coast Swimming's Karley Stutzel finished in 11th position in a time of 1:59.45. The women's event was won in a time of 1:56.42 by Germany's Britta Kamrau.