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We had a great little time trial on May 8 with a bunch of best times, new divisional events and team records! 
Great job by Cameron, Maelie, Calais, Garrick, Freya, Tom, Emma, Chelsea, Aden, Burton, Nicolas, Maddie, Bayden, Nikki and Rafael for racing to best times! A big congrats to Dottie who added another Divisional Standard in the 100m Backstroke! And a really impressive effort by Pippa who raced to two more team records in the 100m Butterfly and 200m Individial Medley as well as one more Divisional time in the 100m Butterfly! 

New Team Records 
10&under Girls 
1:22.09 - 100m Butterfly - Pippa McMillan (was Sidney Clement 1:27.69 2016)
2:59.46 - 200m Individual Medley - Pippa McMillan (was Meghan Haigh 3:06.18 2018)

New Time Standards
SwimBC Divisional Championships 
Pippa McMillan - 100m Butterfly
Nicolas Ramirez Taake - 100m Freestyle
Dottie Ridgway - 100m Backstroke

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Our team looked very strong racing at the Surrey Springfest Long Course Meet! The meet was split into 13&under morning session and 14&over afternoon session. Our younger swimmers did a great job of racing in a long course pool, many of them for the first time this season! The older swimmers have been ramping up their training but worked through the meet for some great results!

It’s always fun to compare the improvement each swimmer makes in a year time.  It was clear that the more you come to practice the more you improve.  Pippa who has a very consistant attendance swam so well.  At only 10 she demonstrates good technical and tactical skill which results in 35 sec drop in 200m IM, 23sec drop on 200m back, 14sec in 100m back, 10sec in 50m fly and was the only 10years old to swim a 400m IM. So kind of a good day at the pool for her as she also set six 10&under team records! Calais also swam very well with 4 out of 6 best time inlcuding a great effort in her 50m Butterfly to qualify for Divisional. Dottie had a fantastic 200m free with a 17sec drop,  19sec best time on her 100m back, best time in  50-100-200m free and 15sec in her 200m IM. (PS she also has perfect attendance). Emily Garden was a fierce cheerer even for other swim team but I guess she was in a good mood swimming so well.  Her 200m free was pretty amazing with a 20sec best time, not bad for a first time long course meet. It was Holly birthday and she wish nothing else but to be competing on her special day, especially having missing the whole week of training for sickness but like a champion she swam her best effort.  Best time in her 200m iM by 7 sec.  Hannah had a great 200m free dropping 25sec from her previous time. and Nikki swam so much faster with100% best time, dropping 33sec in 200m free and 14sec in 100m breast.  Congratulations to Nic who not only swam is first long course meet but also got his divisional time in his freestyle and backstroke races. He also finished first in is age category on the 100m back, second in the 200m back and third in all his other races. Tom also had a great meet with best time in 100m free and 200m im. Not to forget Cameron who also had 100% best time dropping an impressive 15sec in the 200m Back.

The Typhoon and Pursuit swimmers raced to some best times and had to work through their best events because of the hard training we are doing right now as well as the fact that they've raced those events many times long course already this season. A lot of the successes were showing top race speed for portions of their events as we set up the basics for our end of year meets. The swimmers adapted after a tough first day which was great to see, a few of the swims that stood out: 
Burton, Brooke, Lily and Ashton's 400m Freestyles! Brooke and Lily's 200m Individual Medley! Bayden's 400m Individual Medley! Emma's 100m Freestyle! Valentina's 50m Fly! Also as proof of a positive mindset making a huge difference, Raf was so good in his 400m Individual Medley and 400m Freestyle, taking out the races fast and then working like crazy to hold on, racing to big best times in both of the events! 

100% Best Times 
Cameron, Calais, Emily, Tom, Emma, Holly, Pippa, Nicolas, Dottie, Hannah, Lily, Nikki

New Team Records 
10&under Girls 
39.59 - 50m Backstroke - Pippa McMillan (was Carly Kagna 41.09 2009)
1:21.28 - 100m Backstroke - Pippa McMillan (was Natalie Reeves 1:27.09 2011)
2:58.70 - 200m Backstroke - Pippa McMillan (was Morgan Bender 3:09.07 2014)
36.66 - 50m Butterfly - Pippa McMillan (was Sidney Clement 39.35 2016)
3:05.56 - 200m Individual Medley - Pippa McMillan (was Sidney Clement 3:06.86 2016)
6:21.24 - 400m Individual Medley - Pippa McMillan (was Sidney Clement 6:30.67 2016)

New Time Standards
SwimBC Divisional Championships 
Calais Creed - 50m Butterfly
Nicolas Ramirez Taake - 50m Freestyle, 100m Freestyle, 100m Backstroke, 200m Backstroke

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Congratulations to all the swimmers that participate in our development meet this last Saturday.  We have 2 new LMR qualifier: Olivia Wang had a fantastic meet with major best time in her 50m back and 100m free and a pretty fast 200m IM 3 :34.  and Mimu Jiao who got her time by 8sec. she also swam a great first 200m Free.

Monsoon swimmers that participate did very good on their push off in free and back which results in lots of best time for the 100/200m free and back.  Chelsea drop 5 sec in her 100m back and 8sec in her 100m free.  Maelie best time 100m back and first 200m free. Tom improve is 100m back by 7sec.  Ellie 100% best time with a drop of 12 sec in 100m back and 16sec in 200m breast to brake 4:00. Roen B swam a very efficient 200m back and drop 6 sec in 200m IM.

Swimmer from Swim Academy 2 was in number and I want to do a special shut out to Kora and Kinsey that just joined the team a month ago and were so good and fast, showing off their fresh new flip turn, dive and strokes technique.  Evan S. Keon T. and Isa also swam their first 200m IM very well needing to clean up their turns for next time. Lexie was show that at only 7 she is confident to race and has some very beautiful strokes.  Jolie also swam a very good first 200m free.

As for our younger swimmers we had many that swam their first 50m or 100m and some even attempt and succeed to do a legal and fast flip turn. Good job to Hadley, Sienna, Lydia, Amelia and Sepand that swam their first 100m IM.  I was also impressed with Ethan J’s progress and strong race and same with his teammate Alvin.  Mila and Flora had great improvement in their breaststroke and backstroke with best time.  Overall, another successful and fun meet to watch with a lot of Hurricane swimmers winning their heat-collecting ducks, you guys look good in the pool.  Keep it up!

100% Best Times 
Isa A, Maelie C, Sienna EW, Chelsea L, Hadley M, Flora M, Ellie P, Lexie P, Evan S, Mila S, Keon T, Nikki T, Olivia W

New Time Standards 
LMR (Lower Mainland Region) Standards
Mimu Jiao - 200m Individual Medley
Olivia Wang - 200m Individual Medley

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Langley was a very good training meet for us. We had swimmers who were just returning from our Phoenix training camp and some swimmers who were starting to move again after spring break. The swimmers did a great job racing in the heats and finals format, improving on their morning swims. 

I was really impressed with how some of the swimmers competed after coming off of training camp. Emme, Valentina, Burton, Maddie, Kinsey, Bayden, Lily, Raf and Mia all did a great job continuing the work from the previous two weeks. 

100% Best Times 
Valentina, Lily, Mia

New Time Standards
SwimBC Divisional Championships 
Valentina - 200m Butterfly
Lily - 200m Breaststroke, 50m Breaststroke (long course)

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Our team had a very successful training camp in Phoenix over spring break! We had 15 Hurricanes swimmers attend along with 4 Chinook swimmers for the camp. We also trained with 16 swimmers from Squamish and their coach Kelly! 

We trained outdoors short course yards and long course metres throughout the camp with doubles all but one day. 16 workouts in 10 days, about 2.5 weeks of training in 1.5 weeks. A big aerobic boost and a great opportunity to improve training habits! The swimmers put in well over 100,000 yards/metres during the camp! 

I can't say enough about all of the swimmers on the trip. They were often very tired but once they got moving in the next practice they rose to the occasion every time! We really did not have any workouts were I wasn't impressed by the effort of our swimmers. Our more experienced swimmers swam to fast times over and over despite the extra stress on their bodies through the camp. We had a large number of first time training camp swimmers who all did a great job as well. It was a lot of swimming and a lot of challenging workouts that they stepped up for every day!

The swimmers also did a few activities around their training. We did a big team hike up Camelback Mountain and a small team hike up Hole in the Rock. The one afternoon off we headed to Sedona to check out the beautiful landscape and take a scenic hike up to soldier's pass caves. The swimmers also enjoyed a few American stops like In n'Out, Chick-fil-A, Target and last night treats at The Yard Milkshake Bar. These camps are such a huge opportunity for the team to grow closer and it was so great to see everyone working and living together throughout the camp!

We had fantastic chaperones! A big thank you to Eddie and Sherry who were overly organized and ready to help with anything that was asked of them! They did a great job of meals and managing 19 swimmers in our big airbnb. 

We had some travel complications on the way home with our original flight canceled, meaning a lot of extra time at the airport as well as waiting for shuttles, vouchers and organizing. We did make the most of it with a bonus nba game and everyone did a great job working through the extra stress. 

These trips are a great learning experience for the swimmers. It gives them a chance to see how much they are truly capable of in the pool as they rise up to meet the challenges presented to them each day. They also learn to take care of themselves away from the pool, valuable skills for swim meets. There was a lot of excitement but the bedtimes got earlier each day for the most part as the swimmers recognized the need for rest. We had a couple swimmers who came down with fevers as well but they worked through it well. Overall we were very happy with how the swimmers handled themselves, a very polite and responsible group!

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The last Western Championships was a great experience for our team with impressive swimming against the top competition on this side of the country! Hollyburn was represented by eight swimmers, the most ever for our club at the meet and everyone was a part of our strong results! 

Bodie had an excellent meet, racing in finals in three of his events - 100m Backstroke, 100m Butterfly and 200m Butterfly. Bodie had a big drop in his 100m Butterfly racing to a time of 57.00 in the final with his fastest second half! Bodie had our most exciting race of the meet on the last night fighting for a silver medal in the 200m Butterfly! 

Valentina also raced in three finals - 200m Breaststroke, 100m Breaststroke and 50m Breaststroke. After missing Provincials and being out of the water she showed a lot of speed and raced at a very high level just off her best times which was very impressive! 

Burton had an outstanding 100m Breaststroke, continuing to lower his time and really stepping up in finals! Burton was just over his best times in his other four events, racing to very strong prelims times. 

Ashton qualified two weeks ago at Provincials and did a really good job of racing to a best time in his individual event the 200m Individual Medley! His swim moved him up the rankings to a second swim in finals which was a big accomplishment waiting to race his own event on the fourth day of the meet! Ashton also did an outstanding job on our relays, racing to best times leading off the 4x200m Free Relay and 4x100m Medley Relay! 

Brooke was very impressive in her 50m Butterfly, racing just over her best time! She also had an incredible 100m Butterfly on our 4x100m Mixed Medley Relay, racing well under her best time! 

Rafael had a solid 50m Breaststroke and really stepped up on our relays, leading off the 4x100m Freestyle relay for a best time and bettering his times on all four relays! 

Bayden did a really good job in his 200m Breaststroke, racing his fastest time of the season with a very strong first 100m! 

Rohin showed a lot of speed in his 50m Backstroke, swimming fast enough to be under his best time and make a second swim! 

As always our relays were really fun and really fast! Everyone who raced on our relays stepped up for their teammates and used the extra energy to race to fast times! 

These meets are very hard to race to best times, if you look through the results over 75% of the races are over their lifetime bests. It's a big skill to learn to race to bests in prelims so that you have the opportunity to rise up in finals. Our team did an outstanding job of racing throughout the meet and moved up the rankings in most of our events! 

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We had a lot of success at this year's SwimBC Winter Provincial Championships! Our swimmers raced at their best in almost all of their races with a few huge breakthroughs as well! As always our relays were very exciting as the swimmers stepped up for their teammates!

Congratulations to Ashton who raced to his first Canadian Western Championships time in the 200m Individual Medley. Ashton put together a great race with a huge push in his fly and back to start the event!

Burton raced to new Western time standards in his 50m Butterfly, 100m Freestyle and 50m Breaststroke! Burton's time in the 50m Breaststroke was fast enough to race under the Canadian Trials standard for the first time as well as winning a bronze medal and setting a new club record! 

Bodie raced to his second Canadian Trials standard in the 100m Butterfly with outstanding speed off the blocks to race to a bronze medal out of lane 1 in finals! Bodie also had a huge effort in the 200m Butterfly to lower his time by two seconds and race to a silver medal! 

Racing at her first Provincials, Olivia was very impressive switching to long course and going faster than her short course converted times! She made finals in the 50m Butterfly and broke a very fast team record in finals!

Brooke was very good racing to fast prelims times in all of her events and narrowly missing finals. She also had a great 50m Freestyle and was very fast leading off the 4x100m Free Relay!

Freddy was right on his bests throughout the meet using his speed off the blocks and energy on relays to make a big difference! 

Rafael was very strong in his butterfly events and stepped up on relay teams as well! 

Bayden was getting faster throughout the meet and ended with a very solid 50m Breaststroke on the last day!

It was a strange provincials with a few swimmers fighting sickness through the meet. Both George and Stella raced really well before they had to end their meet early. 

Our team does a very good job of stepping up on relays, they are a big part of our team culture and can help show swimmers what speeds they are capable of. Noah and Kinsey raced as relay only swimmers and did a great job helping our teams move up the rankings! Rohin had his best swim on the relay as well. Ashton had a fantastic swim on the 4x200m Freestyle Relay and everyone was up for racing under their bests on the 4x100m and 4x50m Relays! Our 15-17 boys teams finished 6th in the 4x50m Medley Relay (Freddy, Rafael, Bodie, Burton) and 7th in the 4x50m Freestyle Relay (Noah, Rafael, Bodie, Freddy)! 

100% Best Times 
Olivia, Stella

Medalists 
Burton - Bronze 50m Breaststroke
Bodie - Silver 200m Butterfly, Bronze 100m Butterfly

New Team Records 
12&under Girls 
32.32 - 50m Butterfly - Olivia Falls (was Jessica Strong 33.71 2017)
15&over Boys 
30.89 - 50m Breaststroke - Burton Li (was Rafael Wang 31.24 2023)

New Time Standards 
Canadian Western Championships 
Ashton - 200m Individual Medley *1st time standard!
Burton - 100m Freestyle, 50m Breaststroke, 50m Butterfly

Canadian Trials 
Burton - 50m Breaststroke *1st time standard!
Bodie - 100m Butterfly

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It was super nice to see so many young kids participate in te development meet yesterday.  It has been a little while since we saw them race and it was so good for the coaches to see their progress and which skills we saw an improvement and the one we need to reinforce a bit more to be better for our upcoming meets in the Spring. We are hosting a Development Meet on Saturday, April 27 in the afternoon and we will be attending the always fun Whistler Meet on May 25-26, please mark your calendars!

Swim Academy 1: Congratulations to Ramona, Cadence, Sienna, Sarah, Lydia, Roniya, Mila, Amelia, Ethan, Sepand and Sam S. for the participation and completing 50m races keeping their skills together for the whole race (breathing every 3 on free) and even some swimmers using their flip turn and touching 2 hands on breastroke. It was Sam Sheih first swim meet and he did very well.  The swimmers also look good in the relay cheering on each other.

Swim Academy 2: Very good swimming with all best time for the swimmers attending.  High five to swimmer reaching their LMR time. I’m mainly please to see that they all show good skills in 4 strokes.  IM race was so good.

Monsoon: The challenge of this meet was to do 200/400m IM and 200/400m Free combo.  I was so please with the 400m IM (my favorite race to watch-tells me a lot about the quality of the overall work we are doing) swimmers demonstrate the ability to swim 4 strokes with good fundamental skills and turns.  What was also so great was that they all embrace doing it and swim hard.  I was very proud. Same for the 400m free that was swam late at the end of the day, swimmers show a good control of technique but also speed. Keep up the good work guys, pretty impressive last few weeks of racing between the distance time trial, divisional and yesterday!

100% Best Times 
Isa A, Roen B, Ryan B, Ramona B, Joelie C, Maelie C, Cadence C, Emilie C, Sienna EW, Esme F, Mimu J, Tom J, Ethan J, Sarah J, Chelsea L, Lydia L, Raniya M, Hadley M, Pippa M, Ellie P, Lexie P, Scarlett P, Nicolas RT, Dottie R, Maddie R, Sam S, Mila S, Hannah T, Keon T, Nikki T, Olivia W

New Team Records 
10&under Girls 
5:40.25 - 400m Freestyle - Pippa McMillan (was Sidney Clement 5:43.56 2016)
6:15.14 - 400m Individual Medley - Pippa McMillan (was Sidney Clement 6:21.91 2016)

New Time Standards
Lower Mainland Regional Qualifiers
Joelie Cheung - 200m Individual Medley
Maelie Cheung - 200m Individual Medley
Lexie Pang - 200m Individual Medley

SwimBC Divisional Championships
Olivia Falls - 200m Individual Medley
Pippa McMillan - 400m Individual Medley
​​​​​​​Dottie Ridgway - 200m Backstroke

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Divisionals was an exciting meet for our team! It was our most successful Divisionals for new Provincial qualifying races and podium finishes! A fantastic job by each of the 18 swimmers who raced at the meet! 

Olivia was very impressive racing to her first three provincial qualifying times in the 50m Butterfly, 50m Backstroke and 100m Butterfly based on her strong underwater work to start each length! Ashton added six new events to his schedule at provincials with aggressive racing in heats and some strong fine tuning in finals! Stella sprinted to medals in three consecutive races on Saturday, narrowly missing the provincial time in each one! Burton had an impressive start to his racing in the 15&over age group adding four new provincial standards after starting each day with big drops in prelims! Pippa raced as one of the only 10 year olds in the 12&under age group, making finals twice and broke four team records! Hannah built her speed very well in each race leading to big improvements in her breaststroke events and some fast sprinting in backstroke! Kinsey was strong across all events, racing to bests in muliple events! Brooke had big drops in her 200m IM and 400m Freestyle before coming back with an impressive best time in her 100m Freestyle! Lily continues to take off time, beating significant milestones with a 200m Breaststroke under 3:00 and a 100m Freestyle under 1:10! Noah hit best times in all of his freestyle events with great speed on the first half of every race! Emma maintained her speed very well in her 100m and 200m Freestyle events racing to big best times! Bayden's freestyle events were very strong as he pushed hard to best times across three distances! Valentina added the 100m Butterfly to her provincial events racing through the second half with strong breakouts! Rafael had big efforts to hold his speed in both the 200m Freestyle and 100m Butterfly to race to best times and a new event at provincials! Maddie, Emme, Phillipa and Freddy all did a fantastic job racing on relays, helping us score a lot of points and reach the medal podium four times! 

Our relays were again fantastic with a lot of best times. These swims are important to show swimmers what they are capable of and give them confidence for upcoming swim meets. Four relay medals was very exciting and they were all put together by different swimmers really showing our depth at the meet!  

Medalists
Olivia - 12&under - Gold 50m Butterfly, Gold 50m Backstroke, Bronze 100m Butterfly
Ashton - 15&over - Gold 200m Individual Medley, Silver 200m Freestyle, Silver 50m Backstroke
Stella - 13&14 - Silver 100m Breaststroke, Silver 50m Freestyle, Bronze 50m Butterfly
Valentina - 15&over - Gold 100m Butterfly, Bronze 200m Freestyle 
Burton - 15&over - Bronze 400m Individual Medley, Bronze 100m Freestyle
Lily - 13&14 - Silver 50m Breaststroke 
Rafael - 15&over - Silver 100m Butterfly
Noah, Freddy, Ashton, Bayden - Gold - 15&over 4x50m Freestyle Relay 
Phillipa, Stella, Lily, Emma - Silver - 13&14 4x50m Freestyle Relay
Valentina, Kinsey, Stella, Brooke - Bronze - 15&over 4x50m Medley Relay 
Ashton, Kinsey, Rafael, Brooke - Bronze - 15&over Mixed 4x100m Medley Relay

New Team Records 
10&under Girls 
38.88 - 50m Backstroke - Pippa McMillan (was Pippa McMillan 39.82 2024)
1:21.75 - 100m Backstroke - Pippa McMillan (was Stella Harris 1:24.81 2020)
2:49.32 - 200m Backstroke - Pippa McMillan (was Pippa McMillan 2:55.44 2024)
38.01 - 50m Butterfly - Pippa McMillan (was Sidney Clement 38.32 2016)

New Time Standards
SwimBC Provincial Championships 
Olivia Falls - 50m Backstroke, 50m Butterfly, 100m Butterfly *first time qualifier!
Ashton Govier - 100m Freestyle, 200m Freestyle, 400m Freestyle, 50m Backstroke, 100m Backstroke, 200m Individual Medley
Valentina Kolytchev - 100m Butterfly
Burton Li - 100m Freestyle, 200m Freestyle, 50m Backstroke, 400m Individual Medley
Rafael Wang - 100m Butterfly

SwimBC Divisional Championships
Olivia Falls - 200m Backstroke
Emma Johnston - 100m Freestyle
Pippa McMillan - 100m Backstroke
​​​​​​​Hannah Thompson - 50m Backstroke, 200m Breaststroke 

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Our team gained more long course racing experience at the PSW Winter Invitational. 11 swimmers participated with the main goal to set up long course racing at upcoming Provincials and Westerns in March. 

Burton did a fantastic job in his last meet as a 14 year old, setting three team records for the 13-14 age group as well as qualifying his 100m Butterfly for Canadian Western Championships! Burton raced very well in finals Saturday with his 100m Butterfly swim and improving his best 200m Individual Medley result. He was fast off the blocks on Sunday morning with a very strong 100m Breaststroke and narrowly missed Westerns by .03 with a great time of 25.97 in his 50m Freestyle! 

Bodie also swam really well in finals Saturday, narrowly off best times and national time standards in his 200m Individual Medley and 100m Butterfly! He also set a new best 100m Freestyle on Sunday morning! 

Bayden lowered his best times in his 200m Individual Medley, 200m Freestyle and 50m Freestyle!

There were a lot of other strong swims after a slow start on the Saturday morning session. Those break throughs are there are and it is more of a mental game than a physcial one to get to best times. This meet will help swimmers focus as they prepare for fast racing in March at both SwimBC Provincial Championships and Canadian Western Championships! 

New Team Records 
13-14 Boys 
25.97 - 50m Freestyle - Burton Li (was Josh DeCoteau 26.37 2018)
1:01.47 - 100m Butterfly - Burton Li (was Burton Li 1:02.11 2024)
2:21.45 - 200m Individual Medley - Burton Li (was Burton Li 2:22.58 2023)

New Time Standards
Canadian Western Championships 
Burton Li - 100m Butterfly

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We had an incredible Time Trial on Friday night with everyone racing really well! The time trial was run to give swimmers a chance to qualify for Divisionals, gain experience racing distance and get off the blocks this month. Fantastic results all around!

Emma and Pippa both qualified for SwimBC Divisional Championships later this month! Emma had a huge improvement in the 50m Freestyle, needing to go under 30.70, she went under 30 seconds and finished with a time of 29.90! Pippa has been getting closer to her time in the 200m Backstroke all season and she took off six seconds to go well under the time standard and set a new 10&under team record! Both swimmers were ready to race, finishing with all best times and Pippa set another record in the 50m Backstroke! 

Ashton swam a very determined 400m Individual Medley! Needing to take off a second to qualify the event for Provincials, he instead took off over seven seconds to easily qualify with outstanding splits for his fly, back and free! Ashton was also the only swimmer in the race which makes it even more impressive!

Congratulations to all the swimmers who swam either the 400m or 800m Freestyle for the first time! Esme, Olivia, Tom, Pippa, Dottie, Bianca, Hannah, Nikki and Evan all raced the 800m Freestyle and did a fantastic job! Great work by Freya, Holly and Nicolas racing the 400m Freestyle! 

The swimmers raced with a great energy throughout the time trial and it was a really fun evening of swimming for the team! Everyone had some highlights from all the 100% best times to all the new events raced! 

100% Best Times
Maelie C, Olivia F, Freya H, Tom J, Brooke J, Emma J, Phillipa L, Pippa M, Nicolas RT, Dottie R, Maddie R, Lily T, Nikki T, Evan Z, Mia Z

New Team Records 
10&under Girls 
39.82 - 50m Backstroke - Pippa McMillan (was Phillipa Lotz 40.24 2021)
2:55.44 - 200m Backstroke - Pippa McMillan (was Stella Harris 3:00.29 2020)

New Time Standards 
SwimBC Divisional Championships 
Emma Johnston - 50m Freestyle *first time standard!
Pippa McMillan - 200m Backstroke *first time standard!

SwimBC Provincial Championships 
Ashton Govier - 400m Individual Medley

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Hollyburn was well represented by seven swimmers (and joined by one Chinook swimmer) at the Edmonton Open Provincial Series! This long course meet had open finals with a final 4 and then A, B and C finals in most events. It was a great opportunity for our swimmers to improve their long course racing skills while they set up for big performances in March at SwimBC Provincial Championships and Canadian Western Championships. Everyone took part in finals and had successful swims setting up our long course season very well!

Noah raced to a best time in 100m Butterfly while showing a lot of speed in his freestyle events! Ashton took off for a new provincial time in the 200m Backstroke and had a big drop in the 200m Freestyle, in both races he maintained his stroke rate through every 50 and got into a great racing mode! Ava used her great breakouts to her advantage and improved in both of her finals! Brooke really came through in her finals, always improving from her morning swims and racing to a big best time in the 200m Butterfly! Burton had a very busy meet, racing in heats and finals in all eight of his events, including a swim off in the 200m Breaststroke! It was an impressive meet for Burton across all three days while he also improved his team records in the 100m Breaststroke and 100m Butterfly! Kinsey raced to bests in the 100m Breaststroke and 100m Butterfly! She also finished the meet with a very well swum 200m Breaststroke! Bodie really stepped up in finals, racing to a new westerns time in the 100m Backstroke and a big best times in his 50m events!

Valentina attended the meet as a member of the SwimBC Provincial Team. It was a great experience for her working with other coaches and racing with the fastest age group swimmers in our province! Valentina raced her breaststroke events at a high level for this point in our training, she got to race in the big Final 4 final each night in those events! 

The Pursuit group will join the Typhoon, Tsunami and Monsoon swimmers at our time trial on Friday and then race long course again this weekend at the PSW Meet! After that training for performances at their top meets! 

New Team Records
13-14 Boys
1:09.98 – 100m Breaststroke – Burton Li (was Burton Li 1:10.36 2023)
1:02.11 - 100m Butterfly - Burton Li (was Burton Li 1:02.12 2023)

New Time Standards

Western Canadian Championships
Bodie Simard - 100m Backstroke

SwimBC Provincials 
Ashton Govier - 200m Backstroke

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 more photos​​​​​​​

Racing in mid-January after the Christmas break is always a little challenging but gives the swimmers plenty of opportunity to learn and is a great starting point for the new year. The meet helps swimmers manage themselves through a two or three day meet while getting feedback to take back to training. We had a lot of really strong swimming at the meet and will use this meet for a building block for our upcoming training and competition schedule.

Congratulations to Roen and Nicolas who were competing in their first LMR Meet! Both boys did an incredible job throughout the weekend racing many of their events for the first time and really stepping up on our older relays! 

Despite the short time since our training break we exciting results at the meet! Hannah put together a really strong 100m Breaststroke to qualify for SwimBC Divisional Championships for the first time! Oliva maintained her spped in the 100m Butterfly to add her first 100m event for Divisonal Champs! Calais had a lot of really big improvements in her 100m and 200m events! Emme was very fast in her 50m events! Chelsea held her speed very well in her 200m Freestyle! Pippa is really closing in on the 200m Backstroke team record! Nikki's strong technique led her to a lot of big improvements! The meet was a great learning experience for the Monsoon swimmers as they focused on improving their walls, maintaining body position and kicking through every race. They also worked on proper warm ups, taking responsibility for knowing their schedule, warming down after each swim and not asking dozens of questions! 

For swimmers in Pursuit and Typhoon this was a training meet and a focus on longer swims. The meet started off with a distance session on Friday morning. It was great to see big improvements by Ashton, Emma and Phillipa while Maddie and Lily completed their first 800s! In the last session after a lot of racing for most of our swimmers we focused on the 400m Freestyle with a lot of big efforts. A few swimmers really swam the race well, the main focus at this point in our training. Rafael was strong throughout and raced to a new Divisional time! Stella, Emma, Valentina and Phillipa also swam the races very well! Olivia completed her first 400m Freestyle while both Maddie and Lily took off a ton of time! Ashton, Brooke, Dottie, Lily and Mia all had big improvements in their 400m Individual Medley swims! There was solid racing following through with good race strategy throughout the meet for our older swimmers. As we add more training the speed will get easier and those race strategies will really help performances.

Many swimmers had a big schedule with up to 14 races throughout the weekend! It was great to see so many big efforts throughout the weekend especially on the last day when so many swimmers stepped up on relays racing to best ever times which should build a lot of confidence for their upcoming swim meets. A few of our very fast relay splits - Roen (34.9 50 free!), Noah (24.8 50 free!), Emma (30.1 50 free!), Valentina (32.8 50 brst and 27.7 50 free!), George (26.5 50 free twice!), Maddie (36.6 50 fly!), Nicolas (36.3 50 free!) and Mia (32.2 50 free!). We also had a lot of relay leadoff best times - way to go Noah, Emma, George and Pippa! Relays are a great chance for swimmers to feel new speeds, step up for their teammates and surprise themselves with what they are capable of! Really happy to see how well our swimmers stepped up. 

Phone charges include: Ashton, Stella, Emma, George and Burton. So something we still need to work on. 

Overall this meet was a great experience for our team. Everyone should feel motivated to commit to training over the next few weeks as we have many big meets coming up!

100% Best Times
Emme, Chelsea, Nicolas

66+% Best Times
Roen, Olivia, Freya, Emma, Dottie, Maddie, Nikki, Mia

New Team Records
13-14 Boys
2:33.43 – 200m Breaststroke – Burton Li (was Bayden Smith 2:33.60 2023)
15&over Girls 
1:07.49 - 100m Individual Medley - Valentina Kolytchev (was Valentina Kolytchev 1:07.86 2023)

New Meet Records 
13 Boys - 27.97 - 50m Backstroke - George Kingdon
14 Boys - 59.88 - 100m Butterfly - Burton Li 
14 Boys - 25.32 - 50m Freestyle - Burton Li
14 Boys - 1:08.44 - 100m Breaststroke - Burton Li

New Time Standards

SwimBC Divisionals 
Olivia Falls - 100m Butterfly
Ashton Govier - 400m Individual Medley
Stella Harris - 200m Backstroke
Rohin Mountstevents - 200m Butterfly
Hannah Thompson - 100m Breaststroke - 1st qualifying time!
Rafael Wang - 400m Freestyle

SwimBC Provincials 
George Kingdon - 200m Backstroke

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 more photos​​​​​​​

This was a great team meet! The team really bonded throughout the weekend. The meet gave our swimmers a chance to race in a fun heats and finals environment to finish off our racing for 2023. The team traveled together which really helped everyone bond with their teammates. Team travel also meant that everyone was on deck every session to help support their teammates. Six sessions is a lot of swimming, especially for our younger swimmers but they did a fantastic job of learning how to manage themselves through a three day meet. We had outstanding results in every session! 

Lily is an incredible story. Last season ended with a little disappointment, just missing her divisional times as a 12 year old. This year she aged up to the 13-14 age group which means that the standards were going to be harder. She really dedicated her self to her training. Getting to the pool at least five times a week, every week through the fall, even while training for other sports. She consistently worked hard and it has paid off in a big way! Lily improved so much that she was well under the 13-14 divisional times in all three breaststroke events! Her 200m Breaststroke improved from a 3:20 to a 3:02.85! Her 100m Breaststroke dropped from a 1:35 to a 1:25.18! Her 50m Breaststroke broke 40 seconds both swims and finished with a 38.83! She had an incredible meet, always improving from heats to finals and made finals in all of her breaststroke and freestyle events! 

Brooke, Burton and Kinsey continued the trend of swimmers who are fully bought into the program earning impressive results as they raced short course after really good long course results last weekend at the VPSC Invitational. Burton improved every time he hit the water, racing to two team records in the 50m and 100m Breaststroke events and qualifying his 50m Freestyle, 200m Fly and 200m IM for 15&over Provincials. Burton also broke 5:00 in the 400m IM for the first time and in his last week of the weekend had an incredible 100m Butterfly breaking 1:00! Brooke was fantastic, raced really well in prelims and always came back with big improvements in finals! Brooke raced to her first backstroke best times in a long time and she knocked off a lot of time in both the 100m and 200m Backstrokes! Kinsey continues to improve her breaststroke times at every swim meet as she closes in on the Provincial standards! Kinsey had a great meet racing freestyle with a tremendous effort in the 800m Freestyle and a huge drop in her 200m Freestyle! 

Stella really understands how to race, listens to feedback well and made improvements in every final! Stella's highlights were very fast freestyle races across the 50m, 100m and 200m events! Phillipa also had a great meet, taking off time in almost every event and did a great job racing in finals each session! Phillipa finished with big time improvements in the 50m Butterfly, 200m Backstroke and 200m Freestyle! Maddie had a really impressive meet after only being able to pull due to an injury for weeks before the competition! Maddie stepped up to race at her best times as she begins to use her kick again and showed a lot of speed early in her races! Emma raced really well in her freestyle events, with a big drop in the 400m Freestyle as well as more speed in her sprint freestyle events! Bayden had really strong freestyle results with new best times in both the 200m and 400m Freestyles, he also raced to a big best time in his 50m Breaststroke! Emme really went after her 200m Freestyle to get a significant best time! Emme also showed a lot of speed in all of her 50m sprints, posting bests across all the strokes! 

It was so good to see the Monsoon swimmers get into their racing this weekend, it was our first team travel meet where they have been a big part of racing in finals! A great experience for all of them, it was so fun to have them work on racing skills each session. They did a lot of swimming between warm-ups, cool-downs and their events each session, while continually working on their racing skills.
A few highlights: Emilie's breaststroke is really looking strong with a nice glide and strong kick, she took off a lot of time in both the 50m and 100m breaststroke events! Esme broke through with a very determined morning swim in the 100m Butterfly to make finals on the last day! Olivia had a very busy swim meet with mutiple finals each day! Olivia used her strong streamlines and dolphin kicks to get a great start to every length of her races! Freya raced to all bests and had an incredible 200m Backstroke where she dropped over 20 seconds to get a second swim on the last day! Tom was fantastic racing heats and finals in all of his events! Tom raced hard across all four strokes and learned a lot of racing skills throughout the competition! Holly has a great dive to start every race and put in a ton of effort after some time out of the water which led to a great result in the 50m Breaststroke! Pippa kept improving throughout the meet after also being out of the water leading up to the meet, she raced very well throughout a lot of events and especially in her 200m Butterfly final! Dottie also kept very busy through the swim meet with multiple finals each day! Dottie worked hard throughout all of her events and really moved well in the 200m Freestyle to finish the meet with a great result! Bianca always brings energy to the meet which led to great improvements in her 50m Fly and 100m Breaststroke! Hannah was very focused throughout the meet which led to oustanding results and kept her very busy in finals each day! Hannah had very impressive best times in her breaststroke and freestyle events including 15 second improvements in her 200m events! Nikki raced to all best times including a big time drop in her 50m Backstroke! 

These meets are a challenge for the swimmers to stay on their game through every preliminary and final session over three days. Swimmers need to manage their sleep, nutrition and motivation each day which leads to them finding out what they are capable of.  Our swimmers were very impressive throughout the meet with strong results in every session. Great practice for when they start competing at Divisionals, Provincials and national meets! A big thank you to our chaperones - Rosemary and Randa - as well as all of the parents who were there to help out throughout the weekend! We really do have a special team, these events are very fun and motivating for all of our swimmers! 

Top 3 Finishes
Stella Harris - 2nd 50m Butterfly, 50m Breastroke 3rd 100m Freestyle, 100m Breaststroke
Tom Jiao - 1st 50m Breaststroke 3rd 100m Backstroke, 50m Butterfly, 100m Breaststroke, 200m Freestyle
Brooke Johannson - 1st 50m Butterfly 2nd 100m Backstroke, 100m Butterfly 3rd 200m Backstroke
Burton Li - 1st 200m IM, 50m Fly, 100m Free, 100m Brst, 200m Fly, 50m Brst, 100m Fly
Phillipa Lotz - 2nd 100m Freestyle 3rd 50m Freestyle 
Pippa McMillan - 2nd 200m Butterfly 
Kinsey Rossen - 2nd 200m Breaststroke, 800m Freestyle
Bayden Smith - 1st 50m Breaststroke 2nd100m Breaststroke
Hannah Thompson - 2nd 200m Breaststroke

100% Best Times
Olivia, Freya, Burton, Nikki

66+% Best Times
Tom, Brooke, Phillipa, Dottie, Kinsey, Hannah, Lily

New Team Records
13-14 Boys
31.30 – 50m Breaststroke – Burton Li (was Rafael Wang 32.34 2021)
1:08.17 – 100m Breaststroke – Burton Li (was Rafael Wang 1:11.27 2021)

New Time Standards

SwimBC Divisionals 
Olivia Falls - 50m Freestyle, 50m Backstroke
Stella Harris - 200m Freestyle
Lily Thompson - 50m Breaststroke, 100m Breaststroke, 200m Breaststroke

SwimBC Provincials 
Burton Li - 50m Freestyle, 200m Butterfly, 200m Individual Medley

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We had some incredible results at the VPSC Winter Invitational! I was really impressed with our long course swimming at this point in the season! We had a number of swimmers add events to their main focus meets and a lot of swims that will set up new qualifiers in the future. A great spot to be in at this point of the season! I am very excited for the swimmers who are racing in Nanaimo to see how fast they can go short course after such a productive weekend of long course racing!

Bodie had a great meet! Had a big breakthrough in his 200m Fly racing to a time of 2:10.61, under the standard for Canadian Olympic Trials! It is his first time standard and something he has put a lot of work into the past year. Well deserved and great to see all the work pay off. Bodie also raced to his Canadian Trials time in the 50m Butterfly and added two new Canadian Western Championships time standards in the 50m Backstroke and 200m Breaststroke! Bodie hit the medal podium twice with a silver in the 50m Butterfly and a bronze in the 200m Individual Medley! Really strong swimming this early in the season! 

Burton had a lot of speed in his breaststroke and raced to his Canadian Junior Championships time standard in the 100m Breaststroke! He also dropped a ton of time and just missed his Westerns time in the 50m Breaststroke. Burton bettered his own club records in both events and also set a new record with a best time in the 50m Butterfly! 

Brooke has been very close to breaking 30 seconds in the 50m Butterfly and broke it in both heats and finals with a very fast breakout in both of her swims! She also raced to an impressive best time in the 100m Butterfly! 

Valentina also broke 30 seconds in the 50m Butterfly for the first time long course and qualified the event for Westerns! She also raced very well in her breaststroke events for this early in the season, racing to a silver in the 50m Breaststroke! 

Rohin finished the meet with a very fast 50m Butterfly, also qualifying the event for Westerns after being moved up to lane 5 in the A final because of a late scratch. 

Ashton made some big improvements, racing to best times in all of his events! Noah broke 30 for the first time long course in 50m Fly and had a very strong 100m Freestyle! Geprge had great speed in his 100m Freestyle and 50m Butterfly! Kinsey raced to bests in her 100m Breaststroke and 200m IM! Bayden's speed got better as he went through the meet! Freddy figured out how to deck entered himself in the 100m Freestyle so he could race to a best time! Raf learnt some valuable life lessons! 

It was a very strong showing for long course racing! Very proud of how the team looked and we gathered momentum through the weekend as they saw the fast results their teammates were racing to! We will focus even more on long course in the new year and we are in a great position to build these results! 

100% Best Times
 Ashton

66+% Best Times
Burton, Bodie

New Team Records
13-14 Boys
32.00 – 50m Breaststroke – Burton Li (was Burton Li 33.32 2023)
1:10.36 – 100m Breaststroke – Burton Li (was Burton Li 1:10.90 2023)
27.91 – 50m Butterfly – Burton Li (was Burton Li 28.05 2023)
15&over Boys
2:30.92 – 200m Breaststroke – Bodie Simard (was Bodie Simard 2:32.74 2023)

New Time Standards

Canadian Trials
Bodie Simard – 200m Butterfly and 50m Butterfly

Canadian Juniors
Burton Li – 100m Breaststroke
Bodie Simard – 200m Butterfly

Canadian Westerns
Valentina Kolytchev – 50m Butterfly
Rohin Mountstevens – 50m Butterfly
Bodie Simard – 50m Backstroke, 200m Breaststroke

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54 Hurricanes from all of our groups participated in our Hollyburn Invitational this past week! It is always fun to have our whole team racing together, a great experience for all of our swimmers! 

A big thank you to all of our parent volunteers who made this event such a big success! We really appreciate the effort to help with officiating and organizing the food throughout the meet.

Congrats to the Swim Academy 1 swimmers - Ramona, Cadence, Sarah, Lydia, Mila, Amelia, Alistair, Sam and Sepand for their participation and great swimming. All of the swimmers got some best time but most importantly we are remembering our skills better like using the flag and finishing on our back on backstroke and finish 2 hands on breaststroke and fly. We also made huge progress on our breaststroke swim!

Congrats to the Swim Academy 2 swimmers - Jeffrey, Evan S., Keon, Isa, Joelle, Maelie, Mimu, Hadley, Lexie and Olivia for their participation and strong performance as we had many swimmers going 100% best time. Like Olivia that was ready to swim fast with a 20sec best time in her 100m free and 10 sec on her 100m back with strong streamline push off.  Lexie was very fast in all her race and finishing 1st or second in all her race in the 8 and under age category. Hadley drop 20sec on her 50m breast! Mimu, Joelie and Jeffrey got 100% best time! Maelie swam her first 100m IM and 100m Free and had great turns and technique! Keon had a great 100m IM and place 1st or second in all his race. Evan drop 5 sec in his 50m backstroke!

Congrats to the Monsoon swimmers - Emilie C., Esme, Olivia, Chelsea, Holly, Pippa, Marlow, Ellie, Dottie, Bianca, Hannah, Nikki, Tom, Ryan, Nicolas, for participating and showing strong skills. As a group I’m pretty happy with the improvement an the execution of important skills like streamline off the dive and turns.  Monsoon swimmers are consistently breaking out pass 12m on dive and 5m on turns which is so important and good skills to solidify at a young age and i can see we are getting better and faster with this. Every swimmers had an awesome race and here are few highlights; Ellie’s 200m free was an amazing demonstrating of the technical ability we have been working on like; head still and breathing close to the surface, long arm with high elbow recovery and consistent small kick, she clock 3:08.0 for her very first 200m race finishing first in her age category. Olivia had a very fast 100m Fly with a 11sec drop just shy of her divisional time.  Tom start the meet strong with a 27sec best time in his 200m iM.  I was also pretty impress with Nicolas’s performance.  Nic just move up to Monsoon and got is LMR on IM on his first time swimming this race. He also, swam a pretty fast 100m free at 1:23 and finishing 1st in his age category.  Very fun to watch, keep it up swimmers!

Tsunami swimmers showed a lot of progress at our meet and raced well every time off the blocks! Roen was very impressive in the 200m Individual Medley, racing well under the LMR standard of 4:00 with a time of 3:26.55 in his first time racing the event! Roen had a great meet, with fast starts off the block in all of his events! Calais made big improvements in all of her events with strong pushoffs and long strokes! Ethan had a very good meet with a lot of speed early in his events! 

Typhoon swimmers were really strong in the pool especially holding their speed on the second half of their 100m and 200m races. Cameron had a great 100m Butterfly, holding his speed very well in the second half! Phillipa and Lily also made big 100m Butterfly improvements! Lily's great training continues to pay off with big drops in all of her best times! Mia brought all of her times down racing with very good looking long strokes! 

Our swimmers in Pursuit were focusing on setting up racing in December and swam very well for this time of season. Rohin had a lot of speed, bettering his backstroke times with great breakouts and racing to a new team record in the 100m Individual Medley! Burton was very fast off the blocks, continuing to lower all of his best times! 

Pursuit swimmers also raced at the long course meet in Surrey on the Saturday afternoon with fantastic long course results! Bodie had an incredible 200m Breaststroke, holding the water and following his race strategy perfectly to set a new team record! Noah was very impressive lowering his best times in the 50m Freestyle, 200m Freestyle and just missed his 100m Freestyle! Kinsey had a great meet with a big swim in her 100m Breaststroke! Burton and George raced to all bests! Everyone was really good in the 50m format for this early in the season and it's a great sign for our long course racing coming up at the VPSC Invitational in December! 

100% Best Times
Roen B, Ryan B, Ramona B, Joelie C, Alistair C, Calais C, Jeffrey H, Mimu J, Sarah J, Ellie P, Nicolas RT, Dottie R, Ethan S, Mila S, Lily T, Amelia W, Olivia W, Sepand Z, Mia Z

66+% Best Times 
Maelie C, Cadence C, Emilie C, Esme F, Olivia F, Lydia L, Hadley M, Holly M, Rohin M, Lexie P, Evan S, Bayden S, Hannah T, Sam T

Surrey 100% Best Times 
George K, Burton L

New Team Records 
15&over Boys 
2:32.74 - 200m Breaststroke LC - Bodie Simard (was Rafael Wang 2:34.86 2023)
59.50 - 100m Individual Medley SC - Rohin Mountstevens (was Bodie Simard 59.67 2023)

New Time Standards 

LMR Meets 
Roen Baughen - 200m Individual Medley
Nicolas Ramirez-Taake – 200m Individual Medley

SwimBC Divisional Championships
Brooke Johannson – 200m Individual Medley

SwimBC Provincial Championships
George Kingdon – 50m Freestyle, 100m Freestyle, 100m Butterfly
Burton Li – 50m Freestyle

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This year's Swim-A-Thon was very successful with 42 swimmers completing their timed swim on Saturday! Our team also raised over $11,300! Our first time raising more than $10,000 in a season! 

If anyone would still like to donate, donation pages are open and can be set up at donate.swimming.ca or you can email Brad for money to just come out of your Hollyburn account. 

This is a big step in us getting a scoreboard for the pool and we thank everyone for their support! 

Congratulations to Chelsea, Rohin and Freya who won our team prizes! 

Swim-A-Thon Results 
This year we had great results from our swimmers with many more in the water during the 60min timed swim than last season! Quite a few just went for it the entire hour rarely stopping at all! Some swimmers went all freestyle, some used their equipment and as always Holly pushed through doing all fly/back! For the 5km timed swim our average results really improved which was impressive since last year we ran the event in February with an extra three months of training for everyone. Overall very happy with the results for this time of the season! 

Swim Academy 1/2 - 60min timed swim
Isa - 1800m, Cadence - 1550m, Joelie - 2700m, Maelie - 2700m, Mimu - 2500m, Sarah - 1500m, Lexi - 2650m, Scarlett - 2500m, Nicolas - 3100m, Keon - 1300m, Amelia - 1200m, Olivia - 2450m

Monsoon/Tsunami - 60min timed swim
Emilie - 3050m, Calais - 2500m, Esme - 2700m, Olivia - 3150m, Emily - 2700m, Freya - 2850m, Tom - 3350m, Yunhan - 2400m, Holly - 2650m, Pippa - 3000m, Marlowe - 2050m, Dottie - 3400m, Bianca - 3250m, Ethan - 2550m, Hannah - 3050m, Nikki - 3050m

Typhoon - 5km timed swim
Cameron - 1:19:58.08, Emme - 1:32:47.49, Emma - 1:28:54.15, Maddie - 1:32:13.50, Lily - 1:25:03.72, Mia - 1:32:13.50

Pursuit - 5km timed swim 
Ashton - 1:19:34.37, Brooke - 1:12:56.04, Valentina - 1:12:06.12, Burton - 1:04:09.72, Rohin - 59:42.57, Kinsey - 1:15:46.62, Bodie - 1:03:23.77, Bayden - 1:06:14.87

A fantastic event, thanks to everyone who took part, volunteered and helped raise funds for the team! 

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Our first Development Meet of the season was a big success with 41 Hurricanes racing in our meet with 110 swimmers! It was great for our swimmers to get back into competitions as it always helps to motivate training. 

Monsoon did a fantastic job implementing the skills they have been focusing on in practice. The focus on dives, streamlines and turns led to a lot of best times!

Swim Academy 2 looked a lot better on their dives and streamlines as well. Big improvement on their backstroke races! 

Swim Academy 1 did a great job racing freestyle and backstroke! Their work on breaststroke has just began and they will continue to focus on their kick going forward. 

We had five swimmers compete in their first competition! Way to go Ramona, Alistair, Raniya, Connor and Mila! 

As a team our 200m Individual Medley races were incredible! A special congratulations to both Ryan and Emilie who swam well under the 4:00 time standard to qualify for LMR Meets! 

A big thanks to our parents who filled the volunteer positions and helped make the meet run so smoothly! 

100% Best Times
Ryan B, Ramona B, Joelie C, Maelie C, Alistair C, Calais C, Sienne EW, Alexander G, Emily G, Nicholas G, Vincent G, Freya H, Harris H, Tom J, Sarah J, Chelsea L, Lydia L, Raniya M, Hadley M, Lexie P, Dottie R, Connor S, Mila S, Nikki T, Sepand Z

66+% Best Times 
Isa A, Cadence C, Emilie C, Mimu J, Ethan J, Holly M, Pippa M, Bianca R, Amelia W, Olivia W, Evan Z

New Qualifiers 

LMR (Lower Mainland Region) Meets 
Ryan B     200m Individual Medley 
Emilie C      200m Individual Medley 

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Great early season swimming from our competitive swimmers at our October Time Trial! The focus was again on how swimmers approached their races and looking for big efforts early in the season. The swimmers really stepped up with a lot of remarkable swims! 

Big best times by the following swimmers: 
Noah C - 200fly & 50brst, Calais C - 200back & 50free, Olivia F - 200im & 200back, Emme G - 200free, Vincent G - 200free, Freya H - 50free & 200brst, Stella H - 200back, Harris H - 50back, Tom J - 200im & 200brst, Brooke J - 200brst, Valentina K - 200fly, Chelsea L - 50back, Dottie R - 400im & 200back, Kinsey R - 200fly, Bodie S - 200im & 200back, Bayden S - 200fly, Lily T - 400im, 200back, 50back & 200free, Nikki T - 200free, Mia Z - 200im & 200brst

A few first time events as well: 
Esme F - 200brst, Emma J - 400im, Yunhan L - 200free, Pippa M - 200fly, Ellie P - 200free

A few more notable achievements: 
Bodie was incredible at the meet - racing well under his best times in both the 200m Backstroke and 200m IM going out fast in those races and working to hold the speed! Lily stepped up to swim four events way under her previous best times with a huge drop in her 400m IM, 200m Back and 200m Free while following really strong race strategies! Hannah also raced very aggressively with big time drops in all of her events! Rohin was right on his best times which are all at a very high level of performance, very impressive this early in the year! Mia also showed a ton of improvement in all of her races! Pippa had an incredible first 200m Butterfly, just over the team record! Noah's 200m Fly race showed really big improvement! Valentina also had a very nice drop in her 200m Butterfly! Emma's 400m IM was a really great way to start the meet, a huge improvement from last season! Olivia was back after wearing a cast the past few weeks with great efforts leading to best times in her races (working on kick helps)! Tom was very good across the board consistently taking off time in all of his races! 

100% Best Times
Calais C, Vincent G, Freya H, Harris H, Tom J, Chelsea L, Bodie S, Hannah T, Lily T, Nikki T

66+% Best Times 
Noah C, Olivia F, Emma J, Dottie R

New Qualifiers 

SwimBC Divisional Championships
Valentina Kolytchev  200m Butterfly 

SwimBC Provincial Championships 
Bodie Simard   200m Backstroke 

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Our first meet of the season had 25 swimmers take part in Surrey at the PSW Fall Invitational! We were looking for the swimmers to show big efforts and implement the skills we have been focusing on in practice. Our results were very impressive with many of the younger swimmers making big improvements and our more experienced swimmers were starting the season at a really high level. Best times get harder to come by and it is especially hard to beat times that were achieved after 10-11 months of training the previous season. A great sign for our teams performance this year!

We had no disqualifications at the swim meet! That is pretty impressive with over 130 races. A good sign that our swimmers are focused on the little things in practice!

We had a lot of firsts at the meet with the most notable event being the 100m Butterfly for our Monsoon swimmers. Congratulations to Calais, Esme, Freya, Tom, Marlowe and Hannah who all completed the 100m Butterfly for the first time with very strong swims!

In Monsoon a few swimmers really took a big step forward with a lot of large improvements. Calais did a great job, Esme had a lot of big swims, Freya was on it throughout, Tom had big improvements, Chelsea had a really nice breaststroke swim, Holly took off a lot of time, Pippa really dropped time in her breaststroke and freestyle events, Marlowe’s freestyle was very strong, Ellie’s 50m fly was very speedy, Dottie was right on her strong bests the whole way,  Bianca looked very good in her races, Hannah raced aggressively for big drops, Nikki had a very long 100m Back and Evan did a great job taking his races out fast! Everyone had some great swims and even racing close to best times at this time of year is fantastic!

In Typhoon and Pursuit the best times were a little harder to come by but a few swimmers really stood out. Emma, Maddie, Kinsey, Bodie and Bayden swam to almost all best times getting after their races and working to maintain their speed! Fun to see the best times but the swims that were close are great signs as well. At this time of year it is very hard to have high end breakout speed at the beginning of races and off the walls, that will come as we continue through this training cycle.  

Most importantly we really had strong efforts throughout the swim meet. It was great to see all the swimmers into the meet, focused on being aggressive and working their walls! It’s not perfect yet but it was a great starting point for everyone to improve on. These early season meets are a fantastic way to get motivated and improve what is happening in practice. The best times and performances will come.

100% Best Times
Esme, Freya, Hannah

66+% Best Times
Calais, Tom, Emma, Holly, Pippa, Marlowe, Ellie, Maddie, Kinsey, Bodie, Bayden

SwimBC Provincial Standards
Bodie Simard     200m Freestyle, 100m Backstroke

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Our team was represented by Henry, Valentina and Burton at the Canadian Swimming Championships! Valentina was the veteran national swimmer on the team, making her third appearance at a national meet. Henry and Burton both had their first national racing experience. Our swimmers were very impressive racing against a deep field from across the country with very fast results to finish the season! 

Henry swam at a very high level, racing to a best time to start the meet in the 50m Butterfly! He was just .2 off his best 200m Butterfly time and .1 off of his best 100m Butterfly. Fantastic results for preliminary sessions and putting him just outside second swims. 

Valentina swam very well in the preliminary sessions as well, at her best times for morning swims in all three breaststroke events. Valentina qualified for finals in both the 100m Breaststroke and 200m Breaststroke racing to 8th place in the 100 and 10th in the 200m finals! 

Burton was racing at the bottom of the 14-15 year old age group and had a busy schedule after qualifying in breaststroke, butterfly and individual medley events! Burton lowered his team records with new best times in both the 200m Individual Medley and 400m Individual Medley! He was just over his best butterfly results and improved his breaststroke times from Provincials, all of his races were best preliminary results! 

Our swimmers ended the season on a high note with very strong racing at Canadian Swimming Championships! This meet will help set up big goals for the 2023-2024 season that is coming up after a much deserved summer break! 

Team Records 
Boys 14&under 
2:22.58 - 200m Individual Medley - Burton Li (was 2:23.35 Burton Li 2023)
5:04.11 - 400m Individual Medley - Burton Li (was 5:04.15 Burton Li 2023)

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What an incredible meet to end the season! This was a very fun team focused meet for our swimmers with heats and finals in all the 50m and 100m events. This was the first year that our meet had medals for all final events and an announcer which led to a very exciting atmosphere! We had 30 swimmers participate, the most we have ever had train and race in July! 

The focus of the meet is for everyone to have a great end of year experience and to make the most of their full season of training. This is the ideal time to stand up to set personal bests and qualify for meets for next season. For our older swimmers it is very fun to race short course after a few big long course meets including Provincials the weekend before. It was not always easy to get up and go fast in back to back finals but our swimmers found the energy to get up to race over and over again in the finals sessions!

A brief rundown of all the highlights...
Henry continued his big performances from Provincials setting new bests in all of his events including a trio of best times in under 20 minutes with a relay split, 50m Freestyle and 50m Butterfly!
Cameron was all best times and all medals with big drops in his 200m Freestyle and 50m Butterfly!
Noah had an outstanding meet especially with a big improvement in his 50m Butterfly and after racing his freestyle events constantly throughout the season he put together fanastic swims in his 200m, 100m and 50m Freestyle events!
Lincoln was fantastic in her last meet, putting together great swims across all four strokes, racing a perfectly executed 200m Backstroke and finishing with a best time leading off her relay in the 50m Freestyle! 
Esme raced to all best times, broke 40 seconds for the first time in 50m Freestyle and made a huge drop in her 50m Butterfly to race to a medal! 
Olivia had a great meet with a lot of best times, she raced to another Divisionals time in the 50m Butterfly while also medaling in the event!
Ashton really put his breaststroke together with big drops in both the 100m and 200m distances as well as smashing under a minute in the 100m Freestyle!
Tristan had a very good second half of his 100m Backstroke! 
Tom was outstanding, knocking off at least five seconds in every event, racing to multiple medals and broke three minutes with his first 200m Freestyle! 
Brooke raced to great swims across her freestyle and butterfly events including a medal in the 100m Butterfly and new best in the 50m Butterfly! 
Emma was very good with medals on the line racing to so many best times and big improvements in her 100m Backstroke and 100m Butterfly as well as fast 50s throughout the meet! 
Valentina set a new team record in the 100m Individual Medley, broke 30 seconds for the first time in the 50m Butterfly and raced to a 27 for the first time in 50m Freestyle! 
Chelsea had a really fast 50m Breaststroke and raced to multiple medals on her one day of racing! 
Burton medaled in all of his events and set new short course best times in his main events! 
Thea swam a solid 200m Breaststroke! 
Holly was really impressive in her 100m Butterfly and her Backstroke events, taking off a ton of time! She also did a great job racing the 200m Freestyle for the first time! 
Pippa had a wonderful meet racing to all best times and a bunch of medals! She had a few big milestones racing under 40 in the 50m Freestyle, under 40 in the 50m Butterfly, under 1:30 in the 100m Backstroke and under 1:40 in the 100m Butterfly as well as a impressive 200m Backstroke! 
Ivana swam to big improvements in her freestyle events and her 100m Individual Medley! 
Rohin broke a minute in the 100m Individual Medley for the first time and raced to best times in his breaststroke events! 
Marlowe was fantastic improving her 50m Breaststroke, 50m Backstroke and 100m Individual Medley after some time out of the pool! 
Ellie was really on it the whole meet, huge improvements in all of her events while also swimming her first 200m Breaststroke! 
Lexie had a great meet too setting new best times and racing her events for the first time! 
Kinsey had multiple medals and raced to a new best in her 50m Freestyle! 
Bianca did a great job improving all of her freestyle and breaststroke events with big drops! She also filled in when we needed help on a senior relay!
Bodie was just outstanding, racing to new team records in his 100m Breaststroke and 200m Breaststroke as well as big improvements in his 50m sprints! 
Bayden did an incredible job racing his off events, racing well under his bests in all three Butterfly events as well as 50m Freestyle and 100m Backstroke! 
Freddy swam a really solid 200m Backstroke executing his strategy very well!
Keon was great, racing in multiple finals, winning multiple medals and executing almost all of his turns very well! A big meet for our youngest swimmer who participated at 7 years old!
Nikki took off a bunch of time in her Breaststroke events and had an outstanding 200m Freestyle with a big improvement as well! 
Rafael swam a really great 100m Freestyle where he took out the race fast and fought for the win, taking a second off of his best time!

Our relays were also very fun and fast with everyone stepping up to find another speed to help out their teammates!

Thank you to all the parents who helped throughout the weekend with officiating and hospitality! We would not be able to run such a great event without your efforts.

We are now in our last week of training and wishing our Canadian Swimming Championships swimmers the best of luck in Toronto next week - Henry, Valentina and Burton! 

Hollyburn Medalists 
Henry B, Cameron C, Noah C, Lincoln C, Esme F, Olivia F, Tom J, Brooke J, Emma J, Valentina K, Chelsea L, Burton L, Pippa M, Rohin M, Ellie P, Kinsey R, Bodie S, Keon T, Rafael W

100% Best Times 
Henry B, Cameron C, Esme F, Ashton G, Tom J, Holly M, Pippa M, Ellie P, Lexie P, Keon T 

66+% Best Times 
Noah C, Olivia F, Emma J, Burton L, Ivana M, Marlowe M, Bianca R, Bodie S, Bayden S, Nikki T

New Team Records 
14&under Boys 
1:06.88 - 100m Individual Medley - Noah Cheon (was Josh DeCoteau 1:07.44 2019)
15&over Girls 
1:07.86 - 100m Individual Medley - Valentina Kolytchev (was Quincy Bender 1:08.00 2019)
15&over Boys 
1:07.24 - 100m Breaststroke - Bodie Simard (was Bodie Simard 1:08.16 2023)
2:26.29 - 200m Breaststroke - Bodie Simard (was Rafael Wang 2:27.13 2023)

New Time Standards 

SwimBC Divisional Championships 
Lincoln Choquette - 50m Freestyle 
Olivia Falls - 50m Butterfly 
Ashton Govier - 100m Breaststroke, 200m Breaststroke, 100m Freestyle 
Emma Johnston - 100m Backstroke 

SwimBC Provincial Championships 
Noah Cheon - 50m Butterfly 
Ashton Govier - 50m Butterfly
Bodie Simard - 200m Breaststroke, 50m Butterfly, 50m Breaststroke 

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What a fantastic meet this past weekend as we had 17 swimmers competing at SwimBC Summer Provincial Championships at UBC. Our team had it's best ever finish at Provincial Championships racing to 12th overall! This improved our ranking of 13th from Winter Provincials which was the first time we were ever higher than 19th!  

The meet started off very well on Thursday with seven finals and a fantastic swim off! Henry tied for 11th place after an impressive 100m Butterfly and was able to do a swim off for the alternate position. Henry took off improving by another second and racing well under the Canadian Junior Championships time standard with a time of 57.30! It was his first time qualifying for the event. Burton also raced to a new Canadian Juniors time in his 100m Butterfly with a time of 1:02.12 and finished with a bronze medal! 100m Butterfly was great for us with Bodie racing to a new best time and a silver medal in finals, Tristan also raced to a silver medal in his age group and Brooke raced to her best time in finals! Valentina swam to a silver medal in the 200m Breaststroke while Bayden also raced in finals in the event! In the 50m Freestyle, Tristan raced to 5th place and a new team record against the men in the 17&over age group! Other Thursday highlights included a really strong 50m Free from Noah, Ashton setting a new best in the 100m Butterfly and a big best time in the 400m IM for Valentina! 

Friday we continued our fast swimming with Burton adding another Canadian Juniors time in the 400m Individual Medley with a big effort in finals! Thea and Tristan both raced in finals in the 100m Backstroke with Tristan taking off for a new team record and silver medal! In the 50m Butterfly, Burton received a silver medal while Bodie, Tristan and Henry also raced and improved their times in finals! Noah was very good in his 200m Freestyle, Ashton was a best in the 50m Butterfly, Bayden made a big drop in his 400m IM, both Valentina and Brooke just missed the 50m Butterfly final! 

Saturday started with the 200m Butterfly and all of our swimmers raced again in finals! Tristan finished fast to win a bronze medal, Henry improving by a ton of time in both swims and Bodie had a great race with a really fast finals swim! In the 100m Freestyle, Noah went 57 for the first time in heats and improved his time in finals! Rohin and Tristan both raced again in finals in the 100m Freestyle as well! Valentina raced to a silver medal in the 100m Breaststroke! Thea and Rohin competed in finals for the 50m Bacsktroke! Tristan had a fantastic swim accelerating past his competition to race to a gold medal! 

On the last day of the meet we started off with some great 200m Individual Medley's! Valentina really improved her long course time in both heats and finals! Thea and Rohin both raced to finals and Bayden had a big long course best time! Burton improved his time in heats and again in finals to set a club record! Valentina was our only 50m Breaststroke finals swim. Both Tristan and Freddy did a great job improving their times and position in finals in the 200m Backstroke! 

Relays were a very big part of the meet for us with everyone performing really well. Our girls 15-17 team of Lincoln, Valentina, Brooke and Kinsey did a fantastic job of racing to best times in all of their relays and always improving their entry time and ranking! We had our 15-17 boys, 18&over girls and 18&over boys teams racing in finals each night with an incredible atmosphere where they raced well and scored a lot of points for our team! Tristan, Rafael, Bodie and Rohin raced to bronze medals in both the 4x50m Medley Relay and the 4x100m Medley Relay! Rafael, Tristan, Bodie and Rohin finished 5th in the 4x50m Freestyle relay just missing the bronze medal by .06! Thea, Valentina, Brooke and Quincy also raced to bronze medals in both the 4x50m Medley Relay and the 4x100m Medley Relay! Valentina, Quincy, Lincoln and Thea finished 4th in the 4x50m Freestyle Relay! Our 18&over boys finished 5th, 6th and 7th in the 4x50m Freestyle Relay, 4x50m Medley Relay and 4x100m Medley Relay! Our boys 4x200m Freestyle Relay team of Rohin, Bodie, Henry and Tristan finished 8th overall while the girls team of Brooke, Thea, Lincoln and Valentina just missed scoring with an 11th place finish! This was by far the most points we have ever scored in relays at a Provincials! A big thank you to Josh and Quincy for returning to the team to help out the relays each night!

These meets continue to be learning experiences for the team. It was harder and harder each day to get up for best times, especially in the preliminary session. It is possible though and we are still working on managing through these long multi-day swim meets with a lot of races. Especially when the meet is close enough to stay at home but still a lot of travel back and forth with early starts and late finishes. Swimmers from all teams had a hard time racing to their best times and we moved up in the standings much more than the other way. Very proud of our relay swimming and our team spirit throughout the meet. 

Most of our team will end their season with the Hollyburn Summer Meet July 22-23. Good luck to Henry, Valentina and Burton who will be racing at Canadian Swimming Championships August 1-6!

Medal Winners
15-17 Boys Relay - Tristan Govier, Rafael Wang, Bodie Simard, Rohin Mountstevens - Bronze 4x50m Medley Relay 
18&over Girls Relay - Thea Masselink, Valentina Kolytchev, Brooke Johannson, Quincy Bender - Bronze 4x50m Medley Relay
15-17 Boys Relay - Tristan Govier, Rafael Wang, Bodie Simard, Rohin Mountstevens - Bronze 4x100m Medley Relay 
18&over Girls Relay - Thea Masselink, Valentina Kolytchev, Brooke Johannson, Quincy Bender - Bronze 4x100m Medley Relay
Tristan - Gold 50m Backstroke, Silver 100m Butterfly, Silver 100m Backstroke, Bronze 200m Butterfly
Valentina - Silver 200m Breaststroke, Silver 100m Breaststroke 
Burton - Silver 50m Butterfly, Bronze 100m Butterfly
Bodie - Silver 100m Butterfly

100% Best Times
Henry B

75+% Best Times
Emme G, Bayden S

New Team Records
13-14 Boys 
1:02.12 - 100m Butterfly - Burton Li (was Burton Li 1:04.40 2023)
2:23.35 - 200m Individual Medley - Burton Li (was Burton Li 2:26.52 2023)
5:04.15 - 400m Individual Medley - Burton Li (was Burton Li 5:11.14 2023)
15-17 Boys
24.35 - 50m Freestyle - Tristan Govier (was Tristan Govier 24.58 2023)
27.20 - 50m Backstroke - Tristan Govier (was Tristan Govier 27.30 2023)
58.33 - 100m Backstroke - Tristan Govier (was Tristan Govier 58.45 2023)

New Time Standards
Canadian Junior Championships 
Henry Brewster - 100m Butterfly 
Tristan Govier - 50m Freestyle 
Burton Li - 100m Butterfly, 400m Individual Medley 

Canadian Western Championships 
Henry Brewster - 200m Butterfly 

Canadian Olympic Trials 
Tristan Govier - 50m Freestyle 

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SwimBC Divisionals was a fun meet for our team with each day having some sensational swims! 16 Hollyburn swimmers raced at the meet with everyone hitting best times and moving up in their heats!

Highlights…
Henry had a great meet, racing to best or close to best times throughout and always raising his game in finals finishing with a silver in the 200m IM and bronze in the 100m Freestyle with best times in both!
Noah really improved his 200m Breaststroke and 100m Butterfly while just finishing over his best in the 100m Freestyle!
Olivia had a great first divisionals, swimming very well on relays and racing to big best times in her 200m and 100m Freestyle events!
Emme made big drops in all of her breaststroke events and swam a very fast 100m Freestyle at her first divisionals!
Ashton had great 200m Freestyle and 50m Freestyle races while narrowly missed his provincial times in the 50m Backstroke and 100m Butterfly events and finishing with a bronze in his fly!
Stella was very speedy in her 50m Butterfly racing just over the provincial time and put together a very well swum 200m Breaststroke for a bronze medal!
Brooke had an incredible meet, big best times in all of her events across freestyle, butterfly and IM! Her bronze in the 200m Butterfly was just over the provincial standard and she is now close to provincials in her freestyle events!
Emma started the meet off with a big drop in her 200m Freestyle time, made finals in her 200m Backstroke and was very good on our relays for a very successful first divisionals!
George raced to all bests, new provincial times and medals in the 50m, 200m and 400m Freestyles and did a great job with his race strategy, especially in a wisely paced 400m Freestyle!
Valentina was so good in finals, racing to medals and new provincial time standards in her 400m IM, 200m Freestyle and 100m Freestyle with big improvements from prelims!
Burton added two events to his already busy provincials with great swimming in the 50m Freestyle and 200m Freestyle!
Phillipa broke through with big best times in all of her swims racing at her first divisionals! She raced into finals in the 100m Freestyle and was very fast in her relays!
Kinsey keeps racing to best times in all of her events, swam to best times, medals and nearly provincial standards in her breaststroke events!
Bayden had an incredible 200m IM racing well under the provincial standard and was also a big best time in his 400m Freestyle!
Rafael’s focus on his 200m Breaststroke really paid off with a big gold medal swim that qualified him for provincials while breaking 2:30 for the first time!
Mia raced well under her best in all of her races, really helping out the relay teams at her first divisionals!

All of the relays went very well for us with swimmers stepping up and racing to best times throughout, the 4x50m Freestyle Relays were especially exciting with our team racing to two medals! Our 12&under girls team of Mia, Phillipa, Olivia and Emma raced to a bronze medal! An incredible result since it was the first day racing at this new level for all four girls! Our 15&over boys team of Henry, Rafael, George and Ashton also finished with a bronze medal just being out touched by .06 for the gold!

On a sadder note, we did have a decent amount of phone charges. So we still need to work on focusing on being present at the meet and cheering on teammates. Thanks Ashton x3, Stella, George, Valentina, Burton, Rafael x2. 

We also had eight swimmers compete at the Hyack Summer Solstice Long Course Meet on Saturday with really strong long course results that will set up Provincials very well! Henry, Noah, Tristan, Thea, Bodie, Bayden, Jessie and Rafael all raced very close to best times during the meet to get a feel for their long course racing heading into Provincials in three weeks. The swimmers focused on race strategy and had very good results focusing on their racing skills.

Our swimmers have one last chance to qualify for provincials at our time trial on Monday, July 3 before putting all of our focus on results at SwimBC Provincial Championships July 13-16, our Hollyburn Summer Meet July 22-23 and Canadian Swimming Championships August 1-6.

Medal Winners
12&under Girls Relay – Mia Zhou, Phillipa Lotz, Olivia Falls, Emma Johnston – Bronze 4x50m Free Relay
15&over Boys Relay – Henry Brewster, Rafael Wang, George Kingdon, Ashton Govier – Bronze 4x50m Free Relay
Henry Brewster – Silver 200m IM, Bronze 100m Freestyle
Ashton Govier – Bronze 100m Butterfly
Stella Harris – Bronze 200m Breaststroke
Brooke Johannson – Bronze 200m Butterfly
George Kingdon – Gold 200m Freestyle, Silver 400m Freestyle, Silver 50m Freestyle
Valentina Kolytchev – Gold 400m IM, Bronze 400m Freestyle, Bronze 200m Freestyle, Bronze 100m Freestyle
Burton Li – Gold 50m Freestyle, Silver 200m Freestyle
Kinsey Rossen – Silver 100m Breaststroke, Bronze 50m Breaststroke
Rafael Wang – Gold 200m Breaststroke

100% Best Times
Brooke J, George K, Phillipa L, Mia Z

75+% Best Times
Emme G, Bayden S

New Team Records
15-17 Boys
2:27.13 – 200m Breaststroke – Rafael Wang (was Bodie Simard 2:28.72 2023)

New Time Standards
SwimBC Provincial Championships
George Kingdon   400m Freestyle, 200m Freestyle, 50m Freestyle
Valentina Kolytchev   200m Freestyle, 400m IM, 100m Freestyle
Burton Li   200m Freestyle, 50m Freestyle
Bayden Smith   200m IM
Rafael Wang   200m Breaststroke

SwimBC Divisional Championships
Valentina Kolytchev   100m Backstroke
Phillipa Lotz   100m Backstroke, 400m Freestyle

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The Mel Zajac meet is always a big event for our swimmers. This year the meet included fast swimmers from across the country and the United States. The swimmers had the opportunity to watch Canadian Olympians Maggie Mac Neil and Josh Liendo set new meet records and dominate their swims! 

This meet is always at a tough time in our training to go personal bests and you could tell from the results that anyone who was at or near a best time moved up the rankings a lot. Our team raced really well and almost always improved their ranking in each event throughout the meet. 

A few highlights...
Henry had a very strong 200m Butterfly on the last day and somehow raced 50m Backstroke long course for the first time! Noah's 100m Freestyle to lead off our relay was a very strong swim! Lincoln raced to her Provincial time standard in the 50m Breaststroke by perfectly executing her race strategy! Ashton raced to his 50m Butterfly Provincial time standard! Tristan started the meet off with a great Friday of racing, best times in both heats and finals for his two events the 200m Freestyle and 50m Butterfly as well as a great relay split! Stella was very solid throughout her 200m Breaststroke! Brooke's 50m Butterfly matched her very fast best time! George made strong improvements in his 100m Butterfly and 50m Freestyle! Valentina put together a very good 200m Breaststroke, breaking 2:40 for the first time! Burton was very strong in his 100m Butterfly! Rohin raced to his Canadian Junior Championships time standard in his 100m Freestyle relay lead off! Kinsey continues to take off time in her 200m Breaststroke! Bodie gained valuable racing experience with strong efforts in all of his races! Bayden was very close to his bests in all of his breaststroke events and very fast on his relay splits! Freddy was very good throughout the meet, best times in both his 50m Butterfly and 200m IM as well as very strong backstroke swims! Rafael finally got his wish of getting an official split in his 200m Breaststroke and raced very well on his relays! 

New Team Records
15&over Girls
2:38.46 – 200m Breaststroke – Valentina Kolytchev (was Valentina Kolytchev 2:40.02 2023)
15&over Boys
25.55 – 50m Butterfly – Tristan Govier (was Tristan Govier 25.69 2023)

New Time Standards

SwimBC Divisional Championships
Ashton Govier – 100m Butterfly

SwimBC Provincial Championships
Lincoln Choquette – 50m Breaststroke
Ashton Govier – 50m Butterfly

Canadian Junior Championships
Rohin Mountstevens – 100m Freestyle

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Whistler was a very fun team meet as always! It is great to have swimmers from all of our training groups competing together. 

This is such a fun weekend, not only we have an opportunity to race outside our home pool but it’s a time to bound as a team getting together on Saturday night.  I love to see swimmers cheering their team mate young or older. I was very impress with our little one that had to swim longer race 50/100m and they did it very well being so excited to race and even some of them trying skills that we just learned like flip turn. It’s was so rewarding for Flo and I to see this. I was also happy to see that Monsoon swimmers are steadily improving and executing skills like streamline and turns and taking advantage over other competitors. We had new races like 200m breast and back with better than expected results and swimmers impress with their experience and results. Congratulations to all and a special hooray to Olivia who made her first divisional time (due mostly to awesome streamline off the wall).

This meet was a fun break from racing long course for our older swimmers. They showed a lot of great efforts and a lot of good racing in some different events for each swimmer. The relay efforts were fantastic especially since they were the last event of each day. A few notable swims... Emma was really great at the meet, all best times and two new divisional time standards! George also raced to all bests and qualified to race 200m IM at provincials! We had an amazing 100m Breaststroke heat with Bodie, Rohin and Tristan all racing to 1:08s for the first time! Bodie had an incredible 200m Breaststroke as well! Brooke also continues to improve her breaststroke which helped qualify her 200m IM for divisionals! 

100% Best Times
Cadence C, Sienna E-W, Mimu J, Tom J, Emma J, George K, Lydia L, Emily L, Hadley M, Evan S, Sam T

75+% Best Times
Emilie C, Esme F, Olivia F, Saige F, Emme G, Sarah J, Ella L, Pippa M, Hannah T, Lily T, Keon T, Sepand Z, Evan Z

New Team Records 
15&over Boys 
1:08.16 - 100m Breaststroke - Bodie Simard (was Rafael Wang 1:08.22 2022)
2:28.72 - 200m Breaststroke - Bodie Simard (was Colby Evans 2:29.52 2014)

New Time Standards

SwimBC Divisional Championships
Olivia Falls - 50m Backstroke 
Brooke Johannson - 200m Individual Medley
Emma Johnston – 200m Backstroke, 50m Butterfly

SwimBC Provincial Championships
Tristan Govier - 100m Breaststroke
George Kingdon - 200m Individual Medley

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Kelowna was a fantastic racing experience for our team! 23 Hurricanes travelled to the meet ranging in age from 8 to 18 years old. Our performance in the pool was amazing with a very high percent of best times and a lot of finals. The team had a big presence on deck throughout the meet cheering each other on in heats and finals. 

Our Monsoon swimmers were incredible! Racing a lot of events long course for the first time and they would have made B Finals if they weren’t in the only age group without them – 11&under. Hannah had a great heats and finals debut just missing second swims in both the 50m Back and 50m Breast with aggressive racing in all of her events! Emilie raced with great technique, body position and long strokes to hit all best times in her first long course meet! Marlowe attacked her swims, kicked hard and finished with all bests!  Freya was the youngest swimmer in the meet, went out fast in her dives to race to all best times! All four 10&unders had impressive efforts in their 200m Freestyles to start the meet!

Typhoon also had a successful meet with almost 100% best times! Emme raced to her first SwimBC Divisional Championship time standard with a very fast and determined 50m Freestyle! Phillipa added Divisional events in both the 200m Freestyle and 50m Backstroke! Emma raced under the Divisional time in the 100m Freestyle! Mia just missed all bests and had a very fast 50m Freestyle! Lily had a tremendous improvement in her 200m Freestyle and 100m Breaststroke while sprinting fast too in her freestyle and breaststroke 50s!

This meet was very impressive for our Pursuit Group. Coming out of the last training block the goal of the meet was to approach best times and figure out what to work on over the next few swim meets. Then they started to race and everyone really stepped up! Even our swims that were a little off were just over best times and put the group in a great position to race fast through this long course season.

Burton had the swim of the meet in his 100m Breaststroke, going a best time by 1.5 seconds in prelims and then dropping four seconds in finals to finish with a time of 1:10.90 which qualifies him for Canadian Swimming Championships this summer and Westerns next year! Burton also raced to his Canadian Swimming Championships time in the 200m Breaststroke! Bodie also had a great 100m Breaststroke, qualifying for Westerns next year while racing under 1:10 for the first time! Rafael was very strong in all of his breaststroke events and really put together a nice 200m Breaststroke with a good race strategy! Ashton was on fire, knocking off tons of time and constantly moving up in prelims! Ashton raced to his first SwimBC Provincial time as a 15&over swimmer in the 200m Backstroke! Kinsey had big drops in all of her Breaststroke events, putting her work in training into her races! Lincoln also had great speed in her Breaststroke! Saige was out so fast to race under bests in her freestyle events! Henry had very good speed in his sprint events! Noah put together a very good 50m Backstroke! Stella’s sprinting was on in her Butterfly and Freestyle races! Brooke had an incredible 100m Butterfly to finish the meet and a really solid 200m Butterfly too! George did a great job with easy speed in heats in his 200m races! Rohin was very quick in his freestyle sprints! Bayden was very good with big improvements in his Individual Medley events!

Medalists
Ashton – Gold 200m IM, Silver 200m Back
Brooke – Gold 100m Fly, Bronze 50m Fly
George – Silver 100m Back, Bronze 200m Free, Bronze 50m Back
Burton – Gold 50m Fly, Gold 100m Brst, Silver 50m Brst, Bronze 200m Brst
Rohin – Silver 200m IM, Silver 100m Free, Bronze 200m Free
Bodie – Gold 200m Fly, Silver 100m Brst, Silver 400m IM
Bayden – Gold 200m Brst
Rafael – Silver 200m Brst, Bronze 100m Brst

100% Best Times
Emilie C, Emme G, Freya H, Burton L, Phillipa L, Marlowe M, Kinsey R, Hannah T, Lily T

66+% Best Times
Saige F, Ashton G, Stella H, Emma J, Mia Z

New Team Records
13-14 Boys
33.21 – 50m Breaststroke – Burton Li (was Bayden Smith 33.98 2023)
1:10.90 – 100m Breaststroke – Burton Li (was Bayden Smith 1:12.49 2023)
28.05 – 50m Butterfly – Burton Li (was Aidan Smith 29.50 2017)
1:04.40 – 100m Butterfly – Burton Li (was Burton Li 1:05.89 2023)
15&over Boys
1:09.33 – 100m Breaststroke – Bodie Simard (was Rafael Wang 1:09.47 2023)
2:34.86 – 200m Breaststroke – Rafael Wang (was Rafael Wang 2:35.81 2023)

New Time Standards

SwimBC Divisional Championships
Emme Gardiner – 50m Freestyle
Ashton Govier – 200m Individual Medley
Emma Johnston – 100m Freestyle
Phillipa Lotz – 200m Freestyle, 50m Backstroke

SwimBC Provincial Championships
Noah Cheon – 50m Backstroke
Ashton Govier – 200m Backstroke
Burton Li – 200m Butterfly
Bodie Simard – 100m Freestyle

Western Canadian Championships
Burton Li – 100m Breaststroke
Bodie Simard – 100m Breaststroke

Canadian Junior Championships
Burton Li – 100m Breaststroke, 200m Breaststroke

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10 swimmers attended the swim meet this weekend but we had great results and again lots of best times. I was particularly impress with Chelsea 200m free has she swam it perfectly building her race and winning her heat with an amazing 23 sec drop. finishing first in the 10 and under category.  In fact everyone that swim 200m free had best time and Cameron and also Olivia Falls won their age group category. Another spectacular race was Pippa’s and Olivia 200m IM both dropping 17sec and placing 2nd in their category. Ivana also swam that race well with a 11 sec best time. Seems like our freestyle works is paying off because we had lots of improvement like Holly show with a 14sec best time. Very positive results overall.

100% Best Times 
Chelsea L, Holly M, Ivana M

75+% Best Times 
Olivia F, Pippa M, Nikki T

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We had 26 swimmers participating in our development meet which is great and from that we witness some great swims. We add 3 new LMR qualifier; Emily Garden, Tom Jiao and James Lots. Lots of best times in all group from Swim Academy 1 & 2 to Monsoon 43 best times out of 57 entries on existing races. Congratulation to Joelie and Maelie Cheung that participate in their first ever swim meet and did fantastic. One stroke that was clear we made improvement was backstroke with lots of best times and good looking body position and kick close to the surface.

100% Best Times
Ryan B, Joelie C, Maelie C, Cadence C, Oliver E, Esme F, Olivia F, Alexander G, Emily G, Nicholas G, Mimu J, Tom J, Ethan J, Sarah J, James L, Ivana M, Marlowe M, Ashley Y, Evan Z

New LMR Meet Qualifiers 
Emily G, Tom J, James L

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We had a fun weekend racing in Nanaimo with seven swimmers taking part. It was a great chance to practice racing skills during our big training block for the long course season and everyone had some very encouraging results!

Bodie impressed with his racing skills, really working on the second half splits of his events, leading to very fast swims in his 200m Individual Medley, 100m Butterfly and 100m Breaststroke! Kinsey had a really strong 200m Breaststroke holding her speed through the entire race, she also had a fast 50m Butterfly! Lily improved every race at the meet and did a great job getting her speed up in her 50m Breaststroke and 50m Freestyle! It was great to have Atria racing at a meet, she set new bests in all but one event and had a really strong 200m Backstroke to finish! Noah held his speed very well in his races, always coming back strong and had a big drop in his 100m Butterfly! Lincoln was right on her speed in the 50m Breaststroke and great splits in her 200m Backstroke! Brooke's breaststroke showed a lot of improvement leading to a very fast 50m Breaststroke and a large drop in her 200m Individual Medley!

Our next meet will be our big team travel meet to Kelowna May 12-14. 

75+% Best Times
Lily T, Atria Z

New SwimBC Divisional Time Standards
Noah C - 100fly 

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27 Hurricanes raced at the Surrey Knights April Long Course Meet this past weekend with great results! We had a wide range of swimmers at the meet as we officially started our long course season where the swimmers race in 50m pools. Many were just getting used to the long course format after returning to the pool, while some of our team was just coming off of a big training camp through spring break.

We saw very good races from the Monsoon swimmers even though some thought that the pool was very very long! Lots of winning heat and overall a great first experience warming up and racing in a long course pool. This was the first long course meet ever for Olivia, Emme, Ella, Yunhan, Ivana, Nikki and Evan. Olivia swam her fly and freestyle races very well holding a better breathing pattern. Freya 8, who was the youngest swimmer of the meet was incredible in her breaststroke and really improve her butterfly and let’s not forget that she swam a 200m free under 4:00. Yunhan look very good technically in his freestyle race and was very competitive in the 100m breast. Pippa only 9, was fantastic with 100% best times with an incredible 200m backstroke dropping 23sec and finishing 7th for 11 and under. Ivana had a great experience in a long course meet swimming very hard all her races. Nikki also swim very well especially her 200m free and 100m breast. Evan who loves to race had very great dive using dolphin kick to almost 10m really making his freestyle and butterfly races a lot faster.  He swam a fast 200m IM at 3:35.

There was a lot of impressive racing from the swimmers in Pursuit and Typhoon! Henry had a very strong 400m Freestyle! Cameron had a great meet and broke his first team record in the 10&under boys 50m Breaststroke! Noah had a very strong 400m Freestyle and showed a lot of speed in the 50m Butterfly! Lincoln raced all of her breaststroke events very well, especially the 200! Garrick lowered all of his long course times! Emme was very strong in her breaststroke events! Ashton really improved across all of his races with the biggest drop coming in his 400m Freestyle! Stella had a very strong 200m Backstroke! Brooke had a great 200m Butterfly and took off a lot of time in her 200m Backstroke! Emma was very good all weekend and keeps getting closer to the divisional time standard in the 50m Freestyle! George had a very fast 100m Butterfly and raced the 200m Breaststroke well! Phillipa showed a lot of speed in her 100m Freestyle! Rohin was great throughout and took off some important time in his 200m Freestyle, racing to a new Canadian Junior Championships time! Kinsey lowered all of her times in all of her freestyle events! Bodie had big drops in his 200m Freestyle and backstroke events, while improving his racing in both of his fly swims! Bayden was very strong in all of his freestyle swims and lowered his club 200m Breaststroke record! Freddy was very fast in his 50m Butterfly and 200m Individual Medley! Rafael knocked off a lot of time in his 100m Backstroke! Mia’s 200m Individual Medley and breaststroke events were excellent!

Most importantly, our Hollyburn swim team was the best team to cheers on their teammates in both sessions!!! Keep it up guys.

100% Best Times
Cameron C, Olivia F, Garrick G, Emme G, Freya H, Ella L, Yunhan L, Pippa M, Ivana M, Nikki T, Evan Z

75+% Best Times
Ashton G, Emma J, Phillipa L, Kinsey R

New Team Records
10&under Boys
50.80 – 50m Breaststroke – Cameron Chen (was Marcus Zhou 50.81 2019)
12&under Boys
2:58.33 – 200m Breaststroke – George Kingdon (was Ben Baston 3:18.87 2009)
1:07.57 – 100m Butterfly – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 1:09.97 2022)
14&under Boys
2:35.97 – 200m Breaststroke – Bayden Smith (was Bayden Smith 2:36.05 2023)

New Time Standards

SwimBC Divisional Championships
Henry Brewster 400m Freestyle
Ashton Govier   200m Freestyle, 400m Freestyle, 50m Backstroke, 200m Backstroke, 50m Butterfly
Brooke Johannson           50m Freestyle
Bayden Smith    400m Freestyle

SwimBC Provincial Championships
Noah Cheon       50m Butterfly
Rohin Mountstevens      100m Breaststroke
Bodie Simard     200m Freestyle, 100m Backstroke, 200m Backstroke

Canadian Junior Championships
Rohin Mountstevens      200m Freestyle, 100m Backstroke

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Tristan and Valentina represented the Hollyburn Hurricanes at the Canadian Swimming Trials last week in Toronto. The top swimmers from across the country were competing for spots on the Canadian World Championships Team and Junior World Championships teams. It was a very exciting meet with numerous Canadian Records and Summer McIntosh racing to World Records in both the 400m Freestyle and 400m Individual Medley! Very fast swimming for Tristan and Valentina to be a part of. 

Both Tristan and Valentina made multiple finals! The most finals that the Hurricanes have ever had at a Canadian Trials and a big step forward as they aim to move closer to junior national teams in the future. Tristan had an incredible meet, lowering his team records in five of his events. He narrowly missed all best times and would have had a perfect performance if there were junior finals for 50m Butterfly. Tristan's most impressive race was the one where he doesn't hold the team record, he lowered his 200m Butterfly best time by two seconds in prelims and another two seconds in finals finishing with a 2:05.84 and finishing the race with the 4th fastest last 50m split in the entire meet! Really impressive racing. Valentina had a great 200m Breaststroke almost breaking 2:40 with a time of 2:40.02! She moved up in all of her races and added the 100m Butterfly as a provincial event in a time trial!

New Team Records
15&over Boys 
24.58 - 50m Freestyle - Tristan Govier (was Tristan Govier 24.69 2023)
27.30 - 50m Backstroke - Tristan Govier (was Tristan Govier 27.45 2023)
58.45 - 100m Backstroke - Tristan Govier (was Tristan Govier 58.85 2023)
2:10.50 - 200m Backstroke - Tristan Govier (was Tristan Govier 2:11.01 2023)
55.33 - 100m Butterfly - Tristan Govier (was Tristan Govier 55.73 2023)
15&over Girls 
2:40.02 - 200m Breaststroke - Valentina Kolytchev (was Valentina Kolytchev 2:40.97 2023)

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17 swimmers attending our Oceanside Training Camp during Spring Break, a trip that included a lot of training and even more great memories! The camp team consisted of 11 swimmers from Hollyburn, 3 from Chinook and 3 from Squamish. It was a great mix and it really added to the camp to have swimmers from three clubs in attendance.

We did not always get the weather we were hoping for with mostly overcast skies but the swimmers made the most of it. When we arrived, the swimmers were quite comfortable walking around on deck in their swim suits in the plus 15 with thick clouds above. We trained through a couple of downpours with flood warnings around the area. The late training at 7:00-9:00pm was definitely chilly in and out of the pool. We did get one day where we were able to see the sunrise while training and a few more with sunny afternoons, enough sun that we had some swimmers get too much. The weather did not take much away from our training.

The swimmers trained hard with multiple practices each day. In general, they had a longer morning practice in the water, dryland on deck or on the beach and most days returned to the pool to train at night. We ran activities in the afternoon most days including trips to beaches in Oceanside, Coronado, Carlsbad, San Clemente and Huntington Beach as well as a couple of hikes. The swimmers were always up for a lot of beach frisbee and were very good at enjoying all of the bonuses of being in a warmer beach climate. We also got to see Steph Curry drop 50 points as well as five other hall of fame basketball players in the Clippers vs Warriors game.

The pool training involved a lot of big memorable sets including 100x50s, 400im practice, 50x100s as well as a lot of fast yards work and a fun mini-meet. We made the most of our long course training and focused on feeling speed and working on the longer distance swimming. We had a few sets that built throughout the camp that swimmers really started to own and improve results. Mostly there was just a lot of training building up day after day and they did a great job of being there each day ready to keep working. I always like to keep these camps going for 11-12 days since the swimmers start to adapt to the training after the first 5-6 days and then really get a lot done that they wouldn’t normally in their regular training schedule. We trained 2.5 weeks of practices in our 1.5 week camp so it was a lot of work without aiming to beat them up. As we came down in distance the last couple of days the swimmers really showed some fast speed coming off of the work. A great sign, it will be fun to see how they do over the next few weeks as this camp will have them set up. It only works with a big commitment to continue training though!

The swimmers also did some great work with their goal books. They were the quietest goal setting sessions I have ever run with everyone listening and using their goal books to help focus. Hopefully a skill they will continue to use on their own.

A few things for everyone to keep working on, some had more success than others through the camp but these are skills that will help during training, competitions and future camps.
Nutrition, eat well and eat often. We were burning a lot of calories and the swimmers needed fuel. Swimmers also need to make the most of the food given to them which is generally healthier. It got better as the camp went on, but communication with the chaperone/coach really helps. A few too many trips to the gas station to subsidize their diet with what I would guess was not always a healthy option.
Hydration, so important during regular training but even more so when in a warmer climate. A few too many times swimmers didn’t have water bottles on deck and had full water bottles at the end of practice. Water bottles should be emptied during each practice more than once and emptied again throughout the day!
Believe in yourself. We talked a lot about mindset and looking positively at challenges. There was a lot of stepping up and a lot of big accomplishments during the camp. The ones who succeeded the most were ready to go each training session. Managing themselves away from the pool and excited to work!
The camp showed what the swimmers are capable of. If they take that same mentality to their regular practice schedule and know that they performed during big sets during the work in the camp, they will be able to crush regular training workouts!

Everyone had a lot of moments that they should be very proud of. The swimmers really worked together to get through sets and push each other. Henry and Bodie were on another level with their training, pushing through every meter of every set the entire camp. They did such a large percent of the work fly too which was really impressive. Robert and Lukas both stepped up and went after every tough interval throughout the camp and were always up to go fast too. Robert and Oliver owned the 50x100s on 1:30/1:20 set, swimming way under the intervals throughout. Oliver was such a great swimmer to work with swimming every set well and responding to feedback very quickly. Maple did a fantastic job, she was our youngest swimmer and was so good at focusing on length and what she needed to work on in each set. Freddy moved through the water easily with a lot of speed, he was such a great teammate throughout camp and numerous times helped out others when they were down. Tristan really enjoyed training yards and hearing his faster times, he also had a great 50x100 set on 1:25/1:15s. Rohin was there with him on the 1:25/1:15s and put in a huge amount of fast work as well. Nolan worked hard every set, listened well to advice and just kept going and going throughout the camp, always reliable. Rafael did some very impressive breaststroke work long course and short course, when he is on he crushes sets. Ashton also had some incredible sets through the camp, going after big sets early and then maintaining that speed throughout. Bayden really started moving well as he did more work in the camp, finding his breaststroke speed and taking another step with his training. Valentina looks very ready to go heading into Trials next week, through camp she was long and strong in breaststroke even when she was tired from the work, a great sign. Brooke did it all and went fast every time she was asked, has such a nice flow to her butterfly even in the middle of all the work. Ava put in the work throughout camp in every set, always there to push through and was ready to go for every practice. Lincoln continues to raise her training level each training block of the season and it was a big step what she was able to accomplish throughout the camp.  

Being able to focus on training for a week and half makes a huge difference! It was a lot of fun to work with everyone and be a part of their big experience!

A big thank you to our chaperone Carey! As mentioned above she always had a ton of healthy food available for swimmers and made options that worked for everyone. Despite not having a kitchen there was always a good amount of food. She was also very flexible, ready to make changes at the last minute and always there to help out.

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We had a very fast in practice Time Trial on March 9 with swimmers from all groups taking part.

All best times for Isa A, Jessica C, Joelie C, Maelie C, Oliver E, Cameron E, Maxim E, Olivia F, Saige F, Emme G, Nika G, Jeffrey H, Brooke J, George K, Chelsea L, Yunhan L, London M, Hadley M, Holly M, Pippa M, Marlowe M, Kasra N, Kinsey R, Bianca R, Bodie S, Freddy S and Nikki T. Plus so many other great swims! For full results please check out our website - https://hst.poolq.net/results

New Team Records
12&under Boys
35.86 – 50m Breaststroke – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 37.17 2023)
1:18.64 – 100m Breaststroke – George Kingdon (was Burton Li 1:22.19 2022)
1:08.93 – 100m Individual Medley – George Kingdon (was Aidan Smith 1:21.19 2014)
15&over Boys
26.38 – 50m Backstroke – Tristan Govier (was Tristan Govier 26.50 2022)
25.16 – 50m Butterfly – Tristan Govier (was Colby Evans 25.86 2014)

New Time Standards

SwimBC Divisional Championships
Saige Fiorvento – 50m Freestyle, 100m Freestyle
Valentina Kolytchev – 50m Backstroke
Kinsey Rossen – 50m Butterfly

SwimBC Provincial Championships
Freddy Sverre – 50m Breaststroke

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Well done Hollyburn swimmers, what a great meet that was for everybody.  Lots and lots of best times and stroke/skills improvement.

Swim Academy 1: 
Let’s start with congratulating our first time swimmers ever to compete under the Hollyburn Swim Team: Lexie Pang, Sienna Embury-Walsh, Victoria Ho, Sam Thompson, Sarah Johnston and Hadley McLeod! All of them swam very well and conquered their nervousness with fast swimming.
So many best time and stronger skills from Isa A., Lydia L., Keon T., Amelia W., Sepand Z., Evan S., and Henry W.

Swim Academy 2: 
Swim Academy 2 also had 3 swimmers that attend their first swim meet. Way to go Emily Ganden, Mimu Jiao and Emily Leon!  Emily show no fear as she place 2 in her very first 50m free and 3rd in the 100m I.M. in the 11 and over year old category.  Mimu and Emily swam very strongly in all their races both had smile in their faces.  Jeffrey H., place 2nd in the 8years old categories in the 100m I.M and 3rd in the 50m Back. Ryan B., swam all best time and show that he’s got backstroke figure it out with a second place finish. Scarlett Peng swam all best times and finishes 2nd in the 50m breast and 3rd in the 50m back in her age category. Olivia Wang and brothers Asher and Roen also had strong swim and best times.

Monsoon:
Wow is the word that comes to my mind when I think about how this group perform. One thing for sure swimmers that attend practice in a regular basic really swim well and improved their times as we should expect it. We have been working hard on our I.M change over and it pay off as most of the swimmers under 4:00.00 which is a benchmark of being able to attend higher level swim meet.  Congratulations to: Marlow who was the first one of the meet to do it and inspire all her teammate to race incredible 200m IM with a 40sec improvement. Holly 7, swam 3:57 which impress everyone finishing behind her team mate Freya who won it in the 8yo and swam 3:42. Yunhan, improve by 20sec to swim under 4:00 for the first time with a result of 3:41. Nikki, Chelsea, Ella, and Bianca already below the 4:00 mark all improved by at least 5 sec. Ellie swam it for the first time a is only 2 sec off and Emily Clark and Madelyn also getting closer with both over 10sec best times. Evan, was spectacular in his 100m free with a 9sec best time 1:27.  I suggest you look at the full result report to see how the Monsoon swimmers did as most swam best times.  Basically it was a great meet for Monsoon swimmers. 
However, I want to point out and Congratulate, Tom Jiao’s first swim meet under Hollyburn and he did very well.  

Tsunami: 
All best time for Vincent and a time of 3:56 for his 200m IM. Emme who is also new to our team swam very well and finish 1st in the 50m free. Calais swam a best time in the 200m IM.

100% Best Times
Isa A, Asher B, Roen B, Calais C, Sienna E-W, Emily G, Emme G, Vincent G, Freya H, Victoria H, Mimu J, Tom J, Sarah J, Chelsea L, Lydia L, Ella L, Emily L, Hadley M, Holly M, Marlowe M, Ellie P, Lexie P, Scarlett P, Evan S, Hannah T, Sam T, Nikki T, Henry W, Evan Z

New Time Standards
LMR (Lower Mainland Region) Meets 
Freya Hagen                       200m Individual Medley
Yunhan Liu                          200m Individual Medley
Holly McMillan                  200m Individual Medley
Marlowe Murphy             200m Individual Medley
Hannah Thompson          200m Individual Medley

Swimmer Of the Month:

Swim Academy 1:  Maelie Cheung and Maxim Ershad both are very good at listening to the instructions and being engage in the skill we are working on and because of this they have improve their stroke a lot. 

Swim Academy 2: Emily Garden, not only has one of the best attendance but she always have a smile on her face and happy to be there and work very hard.  She swam the most length in the Swim-A-Thon for Monsoon and Academy group. She has a great positive attitude and is very coachable. Keep it up Emily.

Monsoon:  Few swimmers were on the list for this award but we had to choose 2 but keep up the good work everyone maybe you will be next… Coaches choice for the month of February: Pippa McMillan and London Mayo.  Both have very similar quality has they take the time to focus on their drills and skills when we focus o it so they make change and improve the quality of their swim strokes. Because of this they can swim all 4 strokes pretty well. They also work hard and have positive attitude consistently and are very respectful to their team mate which is what we are looking for.  

Training Schedule:
Since January Friday pm practice is now from 4h-5h30pm
Enjoy your Spring Break, no training March 11-26, full schedule resumes on March 27.

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Winter Provincials was an absolutely incredible showing from our team from start to finish! We took home 18 medals won by seven different swimmers. Everyone had great swims throughout the meet and really stepped up whenever we needed them to on relays. Four days with long heats and finals sessions is really draining but our swimmers kept finding there speed and endurance throughout the meet.

Thursday was a great start to the meet with nine individual finals and our 15-17 4x100m Free Relay team of Rohin, Freddy, Henry and Tristan finishing sixth! Our 50m Butterfly swims were amazing with both Brooke and Henry racing to their first Western time standards and a Gold/Bronze combination from Tristan and Bodie! George raced to a Gold in the 100m Backstroke, Silver in the 200m Freestyle and Gold in the 50m Butterfly with all best times. Rafael, Freddy, Burton, Noah, Rohin and Valentina all raced to best times as well!

Friday we continued our strong racing with eight individual finals and our 15-17 4x50m Free Relay team of Rohin, Tristan, Rafael and Freddy finishing sixth! Valentina had an incredible 100m Breaststroke racing to the Senior National standard and blowing away the competition to win Gold! Bayden made a huge four second drop in his 100m Breaststroke! George won Gold in both the 200m Backstroke and 1500m Freestyle! Tristan was very impressive in his 200m Backstroke and set the fastest Hollyburn 50m Freestyle time ever with a 24.69! Bodie went out super fast in the morning and swam a well split race in finals in the 400m IM! Rafael bettered his record in the 100m Breaststroke!

Eight more finals on Saturday and we had our best relay finishes of the weekend in the 4x50m Medley Relay! Our 13-14 boys team of George, Bayden, Burton and Noah finished fifth, our 15-17 boys team of Tristan, Rafael, Bodie and Rohin were sixth and our 15-17 girls team of Lincoln, Valentina, Brooke and Stella were ninth (just missing scoring by .3). Tristan and Bodie raced to Gold and Bronze medals again in the 100m Butterfly! Stella was very determined to medal in the 50m Breaststroke and had a fantastic swim, tying for the Bronze medal! Valentina set new records with a very fast Gold medal 50m Breaststroke! George was dominate again with Golds in the 50m Backstroke and 400m Freestyle! Rafael was also so fast in both the 50m Breaststroke and 100m Butterfly! Henry raced to a new Western time standard in the 100m Butterfly! Brooke and Burton raced to fast best times in the 100m Butterfly!

Sunday was a tough day as swimmers from across the province were drained on the fourth day. Our team stepped up in a big way with eight finals and our boys open 4x200m Freestyle Relay team of Rohin, Henry, Freddy and Tristan finished fifth! George had another double Gold medal day in the 100m Freestyle and 800m Freestyle! Bayden had a tremendous improvement in his 200m Breaststroke to finish with a Bronze! Valentina put together a great 200m Breaststroke to qualify the event for Canadian Trials in her last chance before the meet while also finishing with a Bronze! Henry, Tristan and Bodie were all so strong racing in finals in the 200m Butterfly! Noah had a great meet and broke through with a final in the 100m Freestyle! Rafael had another very fast day with big bests in his 200m Breaststroke and 100m Freestyle!

George finished with the 11-12 year old boys aggregate, the first time a Hollyburn swimmer has raced to an aggregate that I am aware of. He was dominate, check out the swim rankings site to see the six events where George is ranked first for 12 year olds in the country! 

A few other thoughts.

We had incredible team spirit throughout the meet. Everyone was up cheering when they weren't preparing to race, it was really great to see how close and supportive our team is!

We had so many alternates (finishing 9^th or 10^th and just missing finals) in individual events and relays which is great because they were always moving up the rankings but hard that they were so close to those big second swims. We will work to improve this in the summer and probably appreciate the 10 lane pool with two more spots in finals.

Phones. Still a problem on deck Burton, Stella and George were the worst being caught playing games every day ($40).

Our relays were great! A special thanks to Lincoln who was there as a relay only swimmer, led off all four relays and raced to all best times! We were so close to qualifying more swimmers for Canadian Trials and Canadian Juniors, two big goals for the team, both Bodie and Rafael were just .20 away from their Trials cuts in the 100m Butterfly for Bodie and the 50m Breaststroke for Rafael. Swimming is a tough sport where a few hundredths of a second can make a swim feel like a success or failure but both Bodie and Rafael as well as their teammates showed that they are doing the right work in training, racing really well and will get to those times in the future!

There are a lot of ups and downs throughout a four day championship meets. We were on it a lot more than we were off, but it was great to see the resiliency of our team stepping up after little setbacks. These are defining moments and our swimmers are doing the right thing! Overall a fantastic experience that should make everyone on our team very proud!

100% Best Times
Henry B, Noah C, Lincoln C, Brooke J, George K, Burton L, Bayden S

75%+ Best Times
Tristan G, Valentina K, Rafael W

Medalists
Tristan Govier   Gold-50m Butterfly, 100m Butterfly   Silver-100m Backstroke  
Stella Harris   Bronze-50m Breaststroke
George Kingdon   Gold-100m Backstroke, 50m Butterfly, 200m Backstroke, 1500m Freestyle, 50m Backstroke, 400m Freestyle, 100m Freestyle, 800m Freestyle   Silver-200m Freestyle
Valentina Kolytchev   Gold-100m Breaststroke, 50m Breaststroke   Bronze-200m Breaststroke
Bodie Simard   Bronze-50m Butterfly, 100m Butterfly
Bayden Smith   Bronze-200m Breaststroke

New Team Records
11-12 Boys
1:00.31 – 100m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 2022)
2:13.77 – 200m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was Aidan Smith 2015)
4:43.54 – 400m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was Benjamin Baston 2009)
9:50.76 – 800m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was unowned)
18:25.92 – 1500m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was Benjamin Baston 2009)
31.47 – 50m Backstroke – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 2022)
1:07.81 – 100m Backstroke – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 2022)
2:27.94 – 200m Backstroke – George Kingdon (was Aidan Smith 2015)
29.47 – 50m Butterfly – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 2022)
13-14 Boys
33.98 – 50m Breaststroke – Bayden Smith (was Burton Li 35.69 2022)
1:12.49 – 100m Breaststroke – Bayden Smith (was Burton Li 1:16.00 2022)
2:36.05 – 200m Breaststroke – Bayden Smith (was Bayden Smith 2:41.47 2023)
1:05.89 – 100m Butterfly – Burton Li (was Burton Li 1:06.24 2022)
2:26.52 – 200m Individual Medley – Burton Li (was Josh DeCoteau 2:26.91 2018)
5:11.14 – 400m Individual Medley – Burton Li (was Josh DeCoteau 5:13.61 2019)
15-17 Girls
1:12.60 – 100m Breaststroke – Valentina Kolytchev (was Jessica Strong 1:13.31 2022)
2:40.97 – 200m Breaststroke – Valentina Kolytchev (was Jessica Strong 2:42.80 2019)
15-17 Boys
24.69 – 50m Freestyle – Tristan Govier (was Colby Evans 24.71 2015)
4:15.15 – 400m Freestyle – Tristan Govier (was Tristan Govier 4:17.09 2022)
58.85 – 100m Backstroke – Tristan Govier (was Tristan Govier 59.68 2022)
31.24 – 50m Breaststroke – Rafael Wang (was Rafael Wang 32.42 2022)
1:09.47 – 100m Breaststroke – Rafael Wang (was Rafael Wang 1:09.55 2022)
2:35.81 – 200m Breaststroke – Rafael Wang (was Bodie Simard 2:36.51 2022)
25.69 – 50m Butterfly – Tristan Govier (was Colby Evans 25.76 2014)
55.73 – 100m Butterfly – Tristan Govier (was Colby Evans 56.61 2014)

New Time Standards
SwimBC Divisional Championships
Lincoln Choquette           50m Freestyle, 100m Freestyle
SwimBC Provincial Championships (long course)
Henry Brewster                 200m Butterfly
Noah Cheon                       200m Freestyle, 400m Freestyle
Brooke Johannson           100m Butterfly
Burton Li                              400m Freestyle, 200m Breaststroke, 200m IM, 400m IM
Bodie Simard                     50m Freestyle
Freddy Sverre                    50m Freestyle
Rafael Wang                       200m Breaststroke
Western Canadian Championships
Henry Brewster                 50m Butterfly, 100m Butterfly
Brooke Johannson           50m Butterfly
Bodie Simard                     50m Butterfly
Bayden Smith                    100m Breaststroke
Rafael Wang                       50m Breaststroke
Canadian Junior Championships
Valentina Kolytchev        200m Breaststroke
Canadian Senior Championships
Tristan Govier                    100m Backstroke, 50m Butterfly, 100m Butterfly
Valentina Kolytchev        100m Breaststroke, 200m Breaststroke
Canadian Trials
Valentina Kolytchev        200m Breaststroke

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Our team was incredible at SwimBC Divisionals this past weekend! It was a really fun meet to be on deck with our swimmers constantly moving up in the standings and dropping huge amounts of time in some of their main events. This was a meet where all the hard work and effort that has gone into training over the past few months really came through as we raced aggressively and most importantly held onto speed in the second half of races. Our swimmers swam to 12 new provincial time standards, an amazing amount for just one meet. We raced to the medal podium an impressive 17 times and narrowly missed adding a few more with a lot of fourth and fifth place finishes. Our club placed 8^th overall in the top half of the standings with every team above us having much bigger numbers.

Our 13-14 year old boys were fantastic at the meet! Noah raced to big best times in the 200m IM, 100m Back and 200m Free to start the meet with all three events well under the Provincial time standards! Noah continued his fast swimming adding another Provincial time in the 200m Backstroke with a large improvement and just missing the 50m Butterfly provincial time! Noah raced to bests in the 400m IM and 1500m Freestyle for 100% best times and was a big part of all of our relays! Burton also made huge strides at the meet, racing to new provincial time standards and gold medals in the 200m Butterfly, 400m IM and 200m Breaststroke! He also had great swims in his 200m Freestyle and 50m Freestyle while stepping up every time he was in finals! Bayden had a fantastic meet racing to 100% best times and adding the 400m IM to his events at provincials! He made huge improvements in his best events with great breaststroke times including a club record in the 200m Breaststroke! He also took off a ton of time in his 200m IM, 400m Freestyle, 100m Freestyle and 1500m Freestyle! The race of the meet was the 400m IM with Burton dropping nine seconds and racing to a gold medal while Bayden racing from lane 8 pushed through to drop 20 seconds to finish with the bronze!

It was so satisfying to see everyone race so well throughout the weekend. Here are a few more highlights:
Henry’s butterfly was incredible setting new best times in all three events, including a huge drop in the 200m Butterfly to qualify the event for provincials! Lincoln had a great meet overall and really figured out her racing speed with big drops in all three breaststroke events! Stella’s breaststroke races were really fast as well as she had a huge drop in the 200m Breaststroke and was very speedy in her 50m Breaststroke! Brooke put everything together in the 100m Butterfly to reach her big goal of qualifying the event for provincials! George led off our medal winning relay team with a new team record in the 50m Backstroke! Valentina continues to improve her 100m Butterfly racing holding her speed on the second half! Kinsey’s breaststroke speed was very fun to watch as she made big improvements across all three events going out fast right out of the blocks! Rafael swam to two new provincial times in the 200m IM and 200m Butterfly with great splits on the second halves of his races! Natalie was right on her sprinting speed and really helped us on the relays! It was great to have Atria at her first meet of the season and she really stepped up on our relays! Our relays were very fast and fun throughout the weekend!

A few of our provincial swimmers raced long course at the Pacific Seawolves Winter Invitational on the weekend as well. It was a great meet for our team with everyone having some success in the long course format. A few highlights:
Tristan was very strong in his 200m events - butterfly, backstroke and freestyle! Valentina set a new best in her main focus the 200m Breaststroke! Rohin had some fast speed in the 200m IM and 100m Freestyle! Bodie was really quick in his fly and IM events including his 200m Butterfly just .2 off of the Canadian Swimming Trials time standard! Freddy had some fast fly and a really strong 200m Backstroke! Rafael had solid freestyle and butterfly sprinting speed improving his best in the 50m Freestyle!

After these meets it will be very exciting to see our results at SwimBC Winter Provincial Championships in two weeks in Victoria!

Medalists
Henry – Gold 200m Butterfly, Gold 50m Butterfly,
Noah – Silver 200m Freestyle, Bronze 200m Individual Medley, Bronze 100m Backstroke
Lincoln – Silver 50m Breaststroke
Stella – Bronze 200m Breaststroke
Valentina – Bronze 100m Butterfly
Burton – Gold 200m Butterfly, Gold 400m Individual Medley, Gold 200m Breaststroke
Kinsey – Bronze 50m Breaststroke, Bronze 100m Breaststroke
Bayden – Bronze 400m Individual Medley
Rafael – Bronze 200m Individual Medley, Bronze 200m Butterfly
George, Bayden, Henry, Noah – Bronze 4x50m Medley Relay

100% Best Times
Noah C, Bayden S

75+% Best Times
Lincoln C, Burton L, Kinsey R

New Team Records
12&under Boys
31.26 – 50m Backstroke – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 31.54 2023)
14&under Boys
2:33.60 – 200m Breaststroke – Bayden Smith (was Bayden Smith 2:38.17 2023)

New Provincial Time Standards
Henry Brewster  200m Butterfly
Noah Cheon  200m Freestyle, 100m Backstroke, 200m Backstroke, 200m Individual Medley
Brooke Johannson  100m Butterfly
Burton Li  200m Breaststroke, 200m Butterfly, 400m Individual Medley
Bayden Smith  400m Individual Medley
Rafael Wang  200m Butterfly, 200m Individual Medley

New Divisional Time Standards
Bayden Smith  100m Freestyle

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Swim-A-Thon Results 
Thanks to everyone who took part! We raised over $7500 a great accomplishment! We are a little short of our goal this year but we do have a few more days for families to donate! Donate on the website until Friday, February 10 – click here! 

The team towels look great! They are personalized for each swimmer, families can donate to receive their towels or swimmers will be charged under equipment when they receive them. 

Monsoon/Tsunami/Swim Academy Swim-A-Thon Review
I love the Swim-A-Thon because it’s an opportunity for the swimmers to push themselves and choose how to do it. Some works with partners, some follow a swim pattern, some mixed it up as they go, some use equipment, some not so much, some try to do as much as possible other just go up and down at an easy pace.  They have to be their own coach for the day and it’s fun to watch and it’s for a great purpose. Congratulations to all the swimmers who attended but I have to admit I was expecting a bigger turn out…maybe next year.  The swimmers that swam the most length in the hour was Emily Garden in Swim Academy 2, Congratulations Emily!  Below are this year results:

Swim Academy 1:
Isa Armstrong: 1650m 
Joelie Cheung: 2100m
Maelie Cheung: 2600m
Sarah Johnston: 1900m
Keon Torshizi: 2050m
Amelia Wang: 1800m
Henry Wang: 1650m

Swim Academy 2:
Emily Ganden: 3200m
Scarlett Peng: 2400m
Nicholas Taake: 3100m
Olivia Wang: 2600m

Monsoon:
Emily Clark: 2200m
Esme Falls: 2400m
Olivia Falls: 2900m
Freya Hagen: 2500m
Yunhan Liu: 2500m
Holly McMillan: 2400m
Pippa McMillan: 2800m
Ivana Mei: 3000m
Bianca Roth: 3000m
Nikki Torshizi: 2900m
Ashley Yiu: 2900m

Tsunami:
Garrick Gao: 2500m

Typhoon/Pursuit Swim-A-Thon Review
There was a lot of great swimming in the 5km timed swim from the swimmers in Pursuit and Typhoon! Rohin was the first Hollyburn swimmer to race under an hour since we restarted the annual swimathon! We had a lot of swimmers really get after the swim this year, much less use of equipment and a lot of swimmers didn’t stop for more than a second or two throughout the whole swim. A big team effort and a well deserved team dinner after the event! A big thank you to all of the parents and swimmers who helped out counting laps! 

5km Timed Swim Results:
Henry Brewster: 1:02.22
Cameron Chen: 1:21.46
Noah Cheon: 1:06.28
Lincoln Choquette: 1:12.40
Stella Harris: 1:17.41
Brooke Johannson: 1:14.29
Emma Johnston: 1:31.18 
George Kingdon: 1:07.24
Valentina Kolytchev: 1:17.17
Rohin Mountstevens: 58.24
Phillipa Lotz: 1:22.31
Kinsey Rossen: 1:13.37
Bodie Simard: 1:01.13
Bayden Smith: 1:06.07
Freddy Sverre: 1:05.41
Rafael Wang: 1:09.51
Mia Zhou: 1:26.24

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Chena 12&under Meet – Monsoon, Tsunami, Swim Academy

We had a few swimmers that participate in the Chena meet this week end and I wanted to share their accomplishments.

Let’s start with a Henry that participated in his very first swim meet and swam his first 50m free. Well done Henry! His sister Scarlett swam for the first time 100m IM, 100m free, 50m fly and 100m back with beautiful technique and turns and improved her 50m breast and 50m back time.  Isa improved all her times and swam for the first time 100m IM. Roen swam 100m back and 50m breast for the first time looking very strong and improved his previous 50m back time. Rohan also added new races to his repertoire swimming 100m back and 50m breast.  Jeffrey swam is first 100m IM and 100m free winning his heat. Lydia was very courageous on her first 100m race ever and stay on her back the whole time doing legal turn. She improved her 50m back and tried breaststroke for the first time.  Her sister Chelsea was back to compete from last week with her teammate Nikki and both improved time and swam different races.  Nikki swam the 100m IM like a champ and had to step right back on the block for her first 100m Fly and with her heart rate still up there she was awesome and keep her breathing pattern and legs up the whole race. Keon made huge improvement, especially in the 100m free with 44sec faster. Sister Evelyn and Madelyn also had a great meet with best time and Madelyn swam her first 200m IM with beautiful technique.  Sibling Olivia and Amelia show off their much improve backstroke and Olivia swam a very good looking 50m breaststroke. Finally, our swimmers had fun participating in their relay.

100% Best Times
Isa A, Roen B, Jeffrey H, Chelsea L, Lydia L, Scarlett P, Keon T, Nikki T, Henry W, Olivia W, Madelyn W

Langley LC Meet – Pursuit, Typhoon

Our more experienced swimmers had a great opportunity to race long course at the Langley LC Meet on Saturday. There was a lot of great long course swimming for this part of the season and the racing will help set up performances at their upcoming long course meets!

A few highlights: Noah swam a great 200m Freestyle! Ashton went out really fast to get a best in the 200m IM! Brooke was just off her bests in her butterfly events! Emma raced to all best times and really improved her 50m and 100m Freestyles! George took down some old breaststroke events! Burton finally raced some backstroke events and showed off his speed! Phillipa was very strong in her freestyle with bests in the 50m and 100m events! Ally had a great 50m Free! Rohin went out really strong and held on the his 400m Freestyle for the Western time standard! Kinsey sprinted her 50m Butterfly and 50m Breaststroke really well! Bodie was very solid in all of his events racing to four best times! Bayden had an incredible 200m Breaststroke, racing to his first Western time standard! Lily put together a strong race in her 100m Breaststroke! Raf was very fast in his 50m Breaststroke!

100% Best Times
Emma J, Alessandra M, Bodie S

New Team Records

12&under Boys
38.41 – 50m Breaststroke – George Kingdon (was Durban Ball 44.18 2016)
1:23.46 – 100m Breaststroke – George Kingdon (was Ben Baston 1:28.98 2009)

14&under Boys
2:41.47 – 200m Breaststroke – Bayden Smith (was Bayden Smith 2:44.11 2022)

15&over Boys
16:47.62 – 1500m Freestyle – Rohin Mountstevens (was Rohin Mountstevens 16:52.35 2022)

New Time Standards

Western Canadian Championships
Rohin Mountstevens      400m Freestyle
Bayden Smith    200m Breaststroke

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The Mies Schootman Invitational was a very successful first meet of the year for our team! We had 27 swimmers compete with great results from our youngest LMR qualifiers to our national level swimmers! Swimmers in Typhoon and Pursuit raced 12-16 events over three days giving our swimmers the opportunity to race some off events and fine tune their strongest swims. Monsoon and Tsunami swimmers competed in three sessions as they raced in their first LMR (Lower Mainland Region) Meet of the season!

Swimmers in Monsoon and Tsunami focused on tight streamline push offs, strong kick and proper body position throughout all of their races. Many of them raced the 200m Freestyle and 200m Backstroke for the first time and it is challenging to be consistent throughout these longer swims. Our swimmers did a fantastic job with very few DQs. These meets are all learning experiences and there are always things to improve.

A few highlights: Esme had fast arms throughout her 200m Backstroke and a lot of speed in her 50m Butterfly! Olivia gets after every race and was especially fast in her 200m Freestyle! Freya had long strong strokes in all of her races swimming very well for our youngest swimmer! Chelsea was consistently good taking off time in all of her races! Pippa was really strong in her 200m Freestyle and has great body position in all four strokes! Ivana swam with long strokes and looked great in her 200m Freestyle! Bianca glides very well in her breaststroke and swam really well into her turns in her longer races! Nikki has great streamlines and raced to a big best time in the 200m Freestyle! Ashley raced very well in her Breaststroke and Butterfly events! Natalie had a very strong 200m Backstroke! Evan was great in all of his races, good energy to raced to all best times!

Swimmers in Pursuit and Typhoon had to train through the meet racing in six sessions and managing themselves through multiple swims each day. This is always a fun meet for us with swimmers racing some different events and proving how fast they can go even when they feel worn out on the last day. Good practice for our big heats and finals meets coming up! A handful of our Western swimmers also went to a UBC Long Course Meet on Saturday morning to see where their best events were at in a 50m pool before coming back to the downtown meet for the afternoon session.

Even if swimmers are a little off on best times these meets are a big part of our preparation for upcoming meets and give a lot of good reminders for what to focus on in practice. Always an opportunity to learn from every swim! It is also good to keep in mind where everyone is at with some swimmers just back from a break over the holidays and some nursing some small injuries and sicknesses. This being said it is always important to go for it in races since you never know what situation you will be in for an upcoming meet!

I think it’s important to highlight the tremendous job that Bodie throughout the meets. He started off just over his best times in the 800m Freestyle and 100m Backstroke before having a big breakthrough in his 200m Butterfly, racing to a big best time of 2:08 on Friday! He carried this over to the UBC Meet where he took off four seconds in his 200m Butterfly long course and is now just two seconds off his Canadian Trials time! This event is a big focus for his next few weeks that will give him the confidence of only having a small improvement to get to a major goal! Bodie then came back to the CDSC Meet downtown and raced to best times in all the rest of his races on Saturday and Sunday. Really impressive and shows all of the hard work he has put in over the past few weeks after he had a successful fall to start the season. Swimming isn’t always easy, but you put yourself in a great position to be successful by buying into the practices and putting it all out there every race.

A few other highlights from the older swimmers: Henry raced hard in every event and really pushed through for a strong 400m Freestyle in the last session! Cameron had a big improvement in his 200m Backstroke! Noah did a great job of making the most of his races with a big best in the 200m Freestyle and a new Provincial Time in the 50m Backstroke! Saige had the heartbreak swim of the meet with a huge drop in the 50m Freestyle, just missing her Divisionals time by .05 but making such a big leap forward in speed that it is a great accomplishment! Ashton’s butterfly events were very good, who knew that underwater dolphin kicks were a great strategy! Tristan had an incredible 50m Freestyle and raced butterfly in the 400m Freestyle! Stella just keeps improving figuring out her speed in all strokes! Brooke figured out her 200m Butterfly with a really well swum race! Emma might be a breaststroker after all! George continued to reset our team 11-12 year old records! Valentina might be a distance freestyler! Phillipa finished the meet really well with bests all day Sunday! Rohin set the team record in the 800m Freestyle, had a very fast 100m Backstroke and raced his first 400m Backstroke very well! Kinsey had a fantastic meet, breaking three minutes in the 200m Breaststroke and adding 400m Individual Medley to her events for Divisionals! Bayden improved his 200m Breaststroke team record and made a big drop in the 100m Butterfly! Freddy was very fast in his butterfly events, almost breaking a minute in the 100m Butterfly with a time of 1:00.02! Lily made big improvements in her butterfly, backstroke and freestyle sprint events! Rafael had a very impressive 400m Individual Medley! Mia had a great swim in her 100m Butterfly!

A couple of important notes:

Snacks – At competitions we want all swimmers to be eating healthy snacks and not eating unhealthy food on deck or when eating away from the meet. Swimmers need to plan ahead, they were selling a lot of junk at the meet and our younger swimmers were buying a lot of junk at the meet. Make sure you are prepared ahead of time with food that will fuel your body to great performances!

Phones – we unfortunately set a new record for swimmers with phone charges at the meet. Somehow, we even did it without Burton at the meet! And I’m sure it would be higher if I wanted to police this constantly. Congrats to Emma, Stella, Phillipa, Freddy, Ashton, Brooke, Rafael and George(x2) who all owe their parents $10.

100% Best Times
Noah C, Freya H, Chelsea L, Evan Z

66+% Best Times
Esme F, Olivia F, Stella H, Emma J, George K, Valentina K, Pippa M, Ivana M, Kinsey R, Bianca R, Bodie S, Nikki T, Ashley Y

New Team Records
12&under Boys
28.31 – 50m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 28.47 2022)
1:01.03 – 100m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 1:02.67 2022)
4:39.64 – 400m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 4:45.23 2022)
9:42.50 – 800m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 9:45.85 2022)
31.54 – 50m Backstroke – George Kingdon (was Colby Evans 32.99 2009)
37.17 – 50m Breaststroke – George Kingdon (was Benjamin Baston 38.60 2009)
29.55 – 50m Butterfly – George Kingdon (was Burton Li 31.53 2022)
1:06.79 – 100m Butterfly – George Kingdon (was Burton Li 1:10.28 2022)
5:20.65 – 400m Individual Medley – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 5:24.36 2022)
13-14 Boys
2:38.17 – 200m Breaststroke – Bayden Smith (was Bayden Smith 2:41.51 2022)
15-17 Boys
8:39.31 – 800m Freestyle – Rohin Mountstevens (was Tristan Govier 8:43.11 2021)

New Time Standards

SwimBC Provincials
Noah Cheon – 50m Backstroke

SwimBC Divisionals
Kinsey Rossen – 400m Individual Medley

      ​​​​​​​   ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Pointe-Claire was an incredible experience for our team as we traveled to Montreal! We had a lot of fast swimming, big breakthroughs and fun team moments throughout the meet! Everyone was a big part of our success and we had a great presence on deck. Pointe-Claire is one of the biggest age group meets in the country with 750 swimmers from teams representing eight provinces on deck! The pool is one of the best facilities in the country and the Pointe-Claire Swim Club has a storied history of swimming in Canada. The meet was very successful for our team with swimmers racing to best times, qualifying for finals and competing for medals in this exciting environment!

A few highlights:

Henry swam right on or under his best times in every event in a very hard 17&over age group with multiple varsity swimmers. He had a very impressive 200m Individual Medley breaking 2:20 for the first time!

Noah had a lot of exciting races fighting for medals in all the freestyle events! This led to big improvements in his times including breaking a minute long course for the first time in 100m Freestyle!

Lincoln put together great races throughout the meet. She held her speed really well in backstroke racing to medals in both events!

Saige had an incredible 400m Freestyle, improved times in her 100m events and was a strong team leader throughout the meet!

Stella had some amazing breaststroke events racing for medals including pulling through for gold in a very tight 200m Breaststroke final! Stella also had a very strong 200m Individual Medley and was super busy each final session!

Ava traveled with our team from the Chinook Swim Club and did a lot of great racing throughout the weekend ending with her top swim as she joined our relay on the last night!

Brooke overcame a tough dq in her best event to race really well in her freestyle events and break five minutes in the 400m Freestyle for the first time!

George already had good best times but found another gear and improved by a lot in all of his races as he raced for gold medals! Under 2:10 in the 200m Free, under 1:10 in the 100m Back, smashing 2:30 in the 200m Back, breaking 30 in the 50m Fly and a huge drop in the 200m Individual Medley!

Burton was almost perfect in the meet in a tough age group, breaking through for finals in the 100m Butterfly and 100m Breaststroke where he broke team records in each event!

Rohin was very busy throughout the meet racing to finals in six events, starting the meet off breaking two minutes in the 200m Freestyle long course for the first time!

Kinsey swam her 200m Breaststroke very well in both heats and finals, she also broke 2:30 for the first time in 200m Freestyle!

Bodie also had a very busy weekend, racing to big improvements and finals in six events! He was in play for medals in almost every race and swam very confidently with long strokes and fast breakouts throughout!

Freddy had so much speed throughout the meet taking all of his races out fast and showed a lot of maturity racing well after a small set back in one of his best events to race really well in everything else!

Lily did such a fantastic job at her first meet at this level! She battled through her nerves and a weird race schedule to a huge drop in her 200m Freestyle, a super fast 50m Freestyle and great swims in all of her events on the last day!

Rafael was very focused on his 100m Breaststroke heading into the meet and it paid off with fast results in the event in heats and finals! Raf also was very strong in his 200m Breaststroke, 100m Freestyle and 200m Freestyle events!

Our relays were outstanding throughout the meet despite the fact that they were always at the very end of long days at the pool! Our boys 4x100m Medley Relay Team of Freddy, Rafael, Bodie and Rohin raced to a silver medal and a time of 4:05.60 which qualifies our team for Canadian Junior Championships this summer! Our girls 13-14 relay team of Stella, Lily, Kinsey and Saige scored points in all of their relays and our girls 15-over relay team of Lincoln, Stella, Brooke and Saige scored as well in the medley relay! Stella and Saige did a great job of racing multiple relays to help us get all the girls off the blocks! We also scored points with our mixed 13-14 4x100m Freestyle team of George, Noah, Stella and Saige as well as our male 15&over 4x100m Freestyle team of Henry, Freddy, Noah and Rohin!

This meet was a great learning experience for everyone. We have not had many multi-day meets this year and there is a lot to learn from stepping on the blocks to give your best under not always ideal conditions. From late night fire alarms, early morning wakeups, long sessions at the pool and multiple swims each session there was a lot thrown at the swimmers. They dealt with it well and kept coming back with big performances throughout the weekend. A great sign for our big performance meets the rest of the season!

A huge thank you to both Gwen and Tammy who were excellent chaperones who helped everything run smoothly throughout the weekend!  

100% Best Times
George K

66+% Best Times
Noah C, Lincoln C, Stella H, Burton L, Bodie S, Freddy S, Lily T, Rafael W

Hollyburn Medalists
Noah Cheon       Gold 800m Freestyle, Silver 100m Freestyle, Silver 200m Freestyle, Bronze 50m Freestyle
Lincoln Choquette           Bronze 100m Backstroke, Bronze 200m Backstroke
Stella Harris        Gold 200m Breaststroke, Bronze 100m Breaststroke
George Kingdon                Gold 50m Backstroke, Gold 100m Backstroke, Gold 200m Backstroke, Gold 50m Butterfly, Silver 50m Freestyle, Silver 200m Freestyle, Silver 200m Individual Medley
Rohin Mountstevens      Silver 100m Freestyle, Silver 200m Freestyle
Bodie Simard     Bronze 100m Butterfly
Freddy Sverre    Bronze 200m Backstroke
Rafael Wang       Bronze 100m Breaststroke

New Team Records
12&under Boys LCM
28.31 – 50m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was Aidan Smith 28.79 2015)
31.79 – 50m Backstroke – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 33.52 2022)
29.98 – 50m Butterfly – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 30.60 2022)
12&under Boys SCM
2:08.71 – 200m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 2:17.24 2022)
1:06.71 – 100m Backstroke – George Kingdon (was Colby Evans 1:11.49 2009)
2:24.67 – 200m Backstroke – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 2:30.70 2022)
2:31.24 – 200m Individual Medley – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 2:36.33 2022)
14&under Boys LCM
9:51.32 – 800m Freestyle – Noah Cheon (was John Hollands 10:34.32 2012)
1:16.00 – 100m Breaststroke – Burton Li (was Bayden Smith 1:16.02 2022)
1:06.24 – 100m Butterfly – Burton Li (was Colby Evans 1:06.85 2009)
15&over Boys LCM
1:09.55 – 100m Breaststroke – Rafael Wang (was Rafael Wang 1:10.70 2022)
2:36.51 – 200m Breaststroke – Bodie Simard (was Rafael Wang 2:39.81 2022)
15&over Boys SCM
1:08.22 – 100m Breaststroke – Rafael Wang (was Colby Evans 1:09.40 2014)

New Time Standards

Canadian Western Championships
Rafael Wang       100m Breaststroke

SwimBC Provincial Championships
Noah Cheon       50m Freestyle, 100m Freestyle, 400m Freestyle
Burton Li              100m Freestyle, 100m Breaststroke, 100m Butterfly, 200m Individual Medley
Bodie Simard     100m Backstroke
Freddy Sverre    100m Freestyle, 200m Freestyle
Rafael Wang       100m Freestyle, 200m Breaststroke

SwimBC Divisional Championships
Henry Brewster 200m Individual Medley
Noah Cheon       100m Backstroke
Lincoln Choquette           400m Individual Medley
Stella Harris        200m Individual Medley
Brooke Johannson           100m Freestyle, 400m Freestyle

     ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

We had a busy weekend of racing with over 60 swimmers from our team participating in our Hollyburn Invitational Swim Meet! Our team did an incredible job both days, especially our younger swimmers in Monsoon, Tsunami and Swim Academy!

Congratulations to all the swimmers that participate in the swim meet this last weekend. The coaches were very please to see some of the skills we have been working on lately in action, even some of the recent one like some swimmers from Academy 1 doing flip turn in their 50’s when we just introduce it the week before.  As for the Monsoon swimmers all of them had to swim a 200m IM and even though some of them were a bit nervous about it they swam it so well -maybe a few DQ here and there but we will fix that as they will be a lots of 200m IM in their future.  Many of them got their LMR time which is under 4:00.  We also saw lots of improvement in the 100m freestyle with some well execute turns to my delight as we have been working on them every practice.

Swim Academy:
Congratulations to swimmers that got best times: Most of them improved from 2 weeks ago.
Ryan A., Asher and Roen, Lydia, Emily l., Scarlett, Keon, Amelia and Olivia, Sepand, Jeffrey and Ryan B.

Monsoon:
All 6 best times club: Emily C., Calais, James, Ivana, Marlowe, Mostly all best time: Chelsea, Olivia, Esme, Nika, Gracie, Harris, Ella, Yunhan, Holly and Pippa, Bianca, Hannah, Nikki, Madelyn, Mason and Ryan LMR time in 200m IM: Calais (best time by 17sec), Esme (best time by 32sec), Olivia (best time by 15sec), Calais (best time by 17sec), Chelsea (best time by 10sec), Ella and Ivana (1st 200m IM and crushed it), Pippa (3sec best),  Bianca (best time by 5 sec), Nikki and Ryan.

We had lots of fun and I was very please to see how our swimmers were very positive and curious about how well they were doing. We are excited to get back to more learning skills and challenging workouts and working on less DQ.  Another good note is that none of the swimmers from Academy and Monsoon miss a race so that’s a positive!!! 

Typhoon swimmers have been increasing their training and our meet had fantastic results for the group! Cameron, Phillipa, Lily and Mia all had big drops in their 200m IMs! Lily continues to improve her 100m Breaststroke, Phillipa had a strong 200m Freestyle,  Cameron and Mia both raced their 50m Breaststroke really well. They also had a lot of speed in their 50m sprints and everyone went for best times in their 100m Freestyles!

Swimmers in Pursuit raced at the Surrey Long Course Invitational on Saturday and then joined our team on Sunday for the Hollyburn Invitational with really strong racing for this point of the season. Great to see the team really come together and support each other through each meet. The racing will set up fast swimming at the Pointe-Claire Invitational for 15 of our swimmers next week!

A few Pursuit highlights:
Noah raced to 58 seconds in his 100m Freestyle and swam really well long course! Ashton raced so well across all of his events with a very strong 2:10 in his 200m Freestyle! Brooke was all bests and was really aggressive in her 100m Freestyle long course and short course! George improved in all his events! Valentina had a very powerful 100m Breaststroke! Burton had a huge drop in the 200m Breaststroke! Rohin, Bodie and Freddy all had fast 100m Freestyles! Rafael was great in breaststroke all weekend racing the fastest 50m Breaststroke in team history! Kinsey also raced with some Chinook swimmers at the Titans Invitational on the weekend and had a great 200m IM.

A big thank you to all the parents who volunteered over the weekend! We ran a fantastic swim meet that a lot of swimmers on deck and it was run at a very high level. Many compliments from other clubs and parents. Thank you so much!

100% Best Times
Ryan A, Roen B, Ryan B, Emilie C, Calais C, Garrick G, Nika G, Ashton G, Gracie G, Brooke J, Ella L, Emily L, Yunhan L, James L, Holly M, Ivana M, Marlowe M, Kinsey R, Bodie S, Lily T, Olivia W, Madelyn W, Sepand Z, Ryan Z

66+% Best Times
Asher B, Cameron C, Noah C, Lincoln C, Esme F, Olivia F, Jeffrey H, Valentina K, Lydia L, Pippa M, Scarlett P, Keon T, Nikki T, Amelia W, Rafael W, Mia Z

New Team Records
12&under Boys LC
1:02.06 – 100m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was Aidan Smith 1:02.23 2015)
1:09.97 – 100m Butterfly – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 1:10.81 2022)
2:35.40 – 200m Individual Medley – George Kingdon (was George Kingdon 2:43.17 2022)
15&over Boys SC
30.30 – 50m Breaststroke – Rafael Wang (was Rafael Wang 31.34 2022)
15&over Boys LC
1:10.70 – 100m Breaststroke – Rafael Wang (was Rafael Wang 1:12.68 2022)

New Time Standards

LMR Meets (Lower Mainland Region)
Calais Creed – 200m Individual Medley
Esme Falls – 200m Individual Medley
Chelsea Lan – 200m Individual Medley
Ella Leon – 200m Individual Medley
Ivana Mei – 200m Individual Medley
Ryan Zhang – 200m Individual Medley

SwimBC Divisional Championships
Noah Cheon – 100m Backstroke
Ashton Govier – 100m Backstroke

​​​​​​​Western Canadian Championships
Rohin Mountstevens – 50m Freestyle

   ​​​​​​​

​​​​​​​It was a busy first swim meet for our Swim Academy swimmers as we had many returning and new swimmers attend the event.  Coaches were very impressed with how the swimmers performed being so early in the season.  This meet purpose is mostly to get familiar with what is a swim meet so we are expecting lots of nerviness, a few tears and a lots of questions and it’s all good and part of the process.  So far this season we have been working mostly on streamline which take years to master but is one of the most important skill, kicking, head and body position and breathing comfortably in the water. We mostly focus on free and back stroke along with dolphin kick.

The race reflected what we have been practicing and we were very proud of some of the progress swimmers has made in only 7 weeks. We notice that most swimmers were using the legs very well which was good.  We need to continue working on keeping our head lower and still in the water and breathing closer to the surface in Freestyle. For backstroke making sure we keep our legs long while kicking not letting the knees pop out of the water. Finally, I was pleasantly surprise with the 25’s butterfly has we have been working on the kick but only recently start talking about the arm action and yet we saw swimmers doing a very nice full stroke butterfly.  Congratulations to all swimmer that compete for the first time:  Asher, Roen, Ryan, Milaud, Tucker, Lydia, Emily, Lyla, Olivia and Scarlett, Bravo to Isa, Keon, Amelia, Rohan, Jeffrey, Holly, Olivia and Nicholas for participating and helping new team mate to be comfortable by cheering and showing them the way.

Monsoon: We have been practicing very consistently our dive, streamline and turns and I was happy to see that swimmers are starting to use them well in a race. Freestyle is starting to look longer and stronger and I was impress with some of the backstroke as many swimmers are starting to have a nice roll side to side and less and less knee kicking. We just start working on butterfly and already it look a lot better than last year.  Some swimmers already swam best time even though it's early in the season.  Congratulations to Ella, Chloe, Chelsea D and Chelsea L, London, Gracie, Olivia and Esmee, Pippa, Ivana, Bianca, Emily, Hannah, Nikki, Mason and Thanks Marlow for your cheering!

Keep coming and keep working well!

Pursuit and Typhoon continued our impressive early season racing at our Hollyburn Distance Time Trial on Saturday. Many swimmers raced new distance events and everyone continued to show the strong racing skills that we have been working on in practice. We have had a lot of really good early season racing and it is a great sign for our success at more performance based meets in the future.

We also have a handful of swimmers who have raced all of the Olympic events now (counting their 800m split in the 1500m Freestyle). Congratulations to Henry, Noah, Ashton, Brooke, Valentina, Burton, Kinsey and Bodie!

The meet started off with a huge swim for Saige Fiorvento, she needed one more qualifying time to race at the Pointe-Claire Invitational and she had a great 200m Freestyle to qualify for the meet!

First time 1500m Freestyle swimmers: Noah, George, Valentina, Burton, Kinsey, Bodie, Freddy
First time 800m Freestyle swimmers: Cameron, Emma, Mia
Everyone who swam the 800m Freestyle or 1500m Freestyle went a best time!

100% Best Times
Cameron, Noah, Garrick, Ashton, Stella, Brooke, Emma, George, Valentina, Rohin, Bodie, Freddy, Lily, Mia

New Team Records
10&under Boys
12:46.27 – 800m Freestyle – Cameron Chen
12&under Boys
9:45.85 – 800m Freestyle – George Kingdon
18:24.33 – 1500m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was Ben Baston 19:22.73 1994)
2:54.73 – 200m Breaststroke – George Kingdon (was Ben Baston 2:55.87 1994)
15&over Boys
16:52.35 – 1500m Freestyle – Rohin Mountstevens (was Tristan Govier 17:01.19 2021)

New Time Standards
SwimBC Divisional Championships
Henry Brewster – 1500m Freestyle
Noah Cheon – 800m Freestyle, 1500m Freestyle
Ashton Govier – 800m Freestyle, 1500m Freestyle
Burton Li – 800m Freestyle, 1500m Freestyle
Freddy Sverre – 800m Freestyle, 1500m Freestyle
Rafael Wang – 800m Freestyle, 1500m Freestyle

SwimBC Provincial Championships
George Kingdon – 800m Freestyle, 1500m Freestyle
Rohin Mountstevens – 800m Freestyle, 1500m Freestyle
Bodie Simard –1500m Freestyle

A very strong training meet for our swimmers. The focus was on swimming the 400m Individual Medley and 200m Backstroke correctly for most of our swimmers.  

Congratulations to Brooke, George, Emma, Phillipa, Lily and Mia who all swam the 400m Individual Medley for the first time! We had big 400m Individual Medley improvements for Noah, Ashton, Burton, Kinsey and Bodie! Also big 200m Backstroke best times by Henry, Ashton, George, Valentina, Burton, Bayden, Lily, Rafael and Mia!

New Club Records
12&under Boys
28.47 – 50m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was David Zadak 28.93 1994)
2:30.70 – 200m Backstroke – George Kingdon (was Colby Evans 2:31.85 2009)
5:24.36 – 400m Individual Medley – George Kingdon (was Burton Li 5:27.11 2022)

New Time Standards
SwimBC Divisional Championships
Henry Brewster – 200m Backstroke
Noah Cheon – 400m Individual Medley
Lincoln Choquette – 100m Breaststroke
Ashton Govier – 400m Individual Medley
Burton Li – 50m Backstroke, 200m Backstroke
Rafael Wang – 200m Freestyle 

A great first meet of the season for our swimmers in Monsoon! Everyone swam the 100m Individual Medley and 50m Freestyle to set up for racing at our Development Meet on November 5 and our main meet before Christmas, our Hollyburn Invitational November 26-27! It was very fun to have everyone on deck with excitement for racing!

Our older swimmers focused on 400m Freestyle and either the 200m Butterfly or 200m Breaststroke before they were able to sprint a 50m event. Really impressive racing in the 400m Freestyle with nice improvements by Henry, Cameron, Lincoln, Ashton, Tristan, Stella, Brooke, George, Valentina, Burton, Phillipa, Rohin, Kinsey, Lily, Rafael and Mia! Great to see some first times in the 200m Butterfly as well – Cameron, Saige, Emma, Phillipa and Mia! A really strong training meet for everyone.

100% Best Times
Cameron C, Emilie C, Calais C, Chelsea D, Chloe D, Esme F, Olivia F, Saige F, Vincent G, Ashton G, Freya H, Brooke J, George K, Valentina K, Burton L, Yunhan L, Phillipa L, Ivana M, Rohin M, Marlowe M, Tosca NT, Ellie P, Bianca R, Hannah T, Lily T, Nikki T, Mason Y, Ashley Y, Evan Z

New Club Records
12&under Boys
4:45-23 – 400m Freestyle – George Kingdon (was Burton Li 4:49.71 2022)
2:43.13 – 200m Butterfly – George Kingdon (was Ben Baston 2:46.28 2009)
15&over Boys
4:08.56 – 400m Freestyle – Tristan Govier (was 4:09.47 Colby Evans 2014)

New Time Standards
SwimBC Divisional Championships
Burton Li – 50m Backstroke
SwimBC Provincial Championships
Burton Li – 400m Freestyle

The PSW Fall Invitational was our first opportunity to race this season! Our team had a great presence at the meet with 27 swimmers taking part. The focus was on skills worked on in practice and the swimmers did a very good job of implementing their turns and dolphin kicks into their races!

Our Monsoon swimmers did a fabulous job at the meet, for most it was their first racing opportunity at a LMR Meet. Many coaches on deck made comments about how many young swimmers we had and how strong they looked for their age! Their training has just started implementing fly and breaststroke into their practices so this early test is a great way to see their racing right now. The swimmers can take this back to their training and see their improvements as we continue to race throughout the season.  A few notable swims include: Olivia with a big improvement in her 100m Freestyle and raced her first 200m Freestyle! Pippa had great finishing speed in her 200m Freestyle and 200m Individual Medley, she also made a big drop in her 50m Breaststroke! Bianca had a very fast 100m Freestyle and did such a good job gliding in her breaststroke events! Nikki went out after her races very well and raced into all of her walls! Ashley had great splitting in her 200m Freestyle building her effort throughout the race! Evan had a lot of great swims, his breaststroke was very powerful and he had a lot of speed out of the blocks in his 100m Freestyle! All of the Monsoon swimmers had a lot of energy and an endless amount of questions so it was great for them to have this racing experience!

Swimmers in Tsunami, Typhoon and Pursuit were also just setting a baseline for their racing the rest of the season. For the most part swimmers were doing great work streamlining off the wall and using their underwaters to their advantage. It was great to see swimmers using their kick to build their speed early in the length, a very good sign for this time of the year! Anyone who was within a second of a best time in their 50s/100s and a couple of seconds in their 200s was really on it. The first meet of the season is very motivational for swimmers to take back into training. We are just starting to implement race speeds into our workouts so that will make a big difference as we move forward.

A few swimmers need to be mentioned from the older groups:  Cameron was awesome, tons of outstanding improvement from last season! Noah had really strong racing speed throughout! Ashton made a huge leap forward, put his strong training into his racing and took off a lot of time in every event! Stella raced very wisely, holding then water then building her stroke rate! Valentina was less scared of 100 Fly! Burton had a fantastic 100 Back! Phillipa made solid improvements to her breaststroke resulting in big best times! Kinsey’s freestyle had a lot of speed right out of the blocks and she swam the 100 Fly well! Bodie raced at a high level throughout the meet especially in his freestyle really using his underwaters and breakouts! Bayden had a big drop in his 100m Freestyle! Lily really showed off her great training with best times in every event! Mia’s sprinting speed was there and she swam a well split 200 IM!

Over the next few weeks swimmers will ideally be racing every event before we start focusing on their top events to end the fall training cycle. Racing different events helps to build racing tactics, focuses on skills from practice and helps keep things interesting for everyone. 

One note, please label your swimmers shirts and check that they are bringing the right ones home. We had a couple go missing at the meet. 

Our new website hst.poolq.net has a lot of cool meet result features, visit the site and see how your swimmer did versus their previous races.

100% Best Times
Ashton G, Lily T

70+% Best Times
Cameron C, Stella H, Evan Z