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More Records Fall on Last Day of CIAU Championships

Feb 26, 2001

Guelph, ON - The University of British Columbia have repeated as CIAU swimming champions for both men and women again this year. Calgary and Toronto finished second and third respectively. Thirteen CIAU and one Canadian record fell over the 3 days.

Rick Say from Calgary and Laval's Sophie Simard were swimmers of the meet for the best two swims cumulative total on the swim Canada point scale. Simard won both the 200FR and 400FR both just outside the Canadian record and added the 100FR on day 3. Say broke the 400FR Canadian record and just missed the 200FR while also capturing the Gold in the 100FR and 1500FR. Their respective coaches won coach of the year honours. Mike Blondal from Calgary and Michelle Berube from Laval were the coaches selected by a vote of their peers.

Carla Guerts from New Brunswick shattered Deglau's 800FR CIAU record in 8:37.06 with UBC's Kelly Doody out-touching her teammate Angela Stanley by18/100 for second.

The same people jockeyed for position in the 50BR as Calgary went 1-2 Emma Spooner 33.49 to Kristy Cameron's 33.54. Jenny Wear from Victoria finished 3rd in 33.96.

The men's 50BR was spread right across the country. The win went to Spencer Cowan from Laurier with a 28.70 while the East coast's Chris Stewart from Dalhousie got his fingers on the wall .05 before the west coast Jason Hunter from Victoria, 29.02 to 29.07.

In the 200BK Kelly Stefanyshyn finally added a gold to her 3 individual silver medals by demolishing Joanne Malar's CIAU record by 3 seconds. Stefanyshyn's 2:08.15 was only .09 off her own Canadian record. Malar presented the award to the new record holder and Canadian national team buddy.

Sean Sepulis from Guelph finished his CIAU career on a high note by sweeping all three backstrokes. In today's 200BK Versfeld from UBC took the early lead and stretched it to .62 by the 100. Sepulis picked up the pace and narrowed the gap to .24 at the 150 and finished in 1:58.30 to Versfeld's 1:58.61. Stephen Preston was third for Laval.

In the women's 100FR Laval's Sophie Simard and McMaster's Janet Cook turned almost even at the 50 with Deglau .4 behind. Simard, 56.18, outlasted Cook to the wall and Deglau closed to photofinish with Cook at 56.48.

Rick Say, now of Calgary, picked up his 4th individual Gold with a well split 24.24/25.24 to finish in 49.48 almost a second ahead of Jake Steele and Garrett Pulle from UBC.

Three Ontario swimmers up until this year were the medallists in the 200IM. Toronto's Liz Warden led from the start 2:14.92 to win going away over Calgary teammates Dena Durand 2:16.41 and a fast closing Kristy Cameron 2:17.19.

Brian Johns took an early lead in the 200IM and built on it to finish in 1:59.59 for his UBC teammates. McGill's Sylvain Lemieux and Calgary's Joe Melton established their position by the 100 and held it to the end finishing in 2:02.39 and 2:02.87.

The final of the men's 1500FR was a bit anticlimactic as Rick Say recorded a 15:07.94 for Calgary in an early NT heat and nobody could match it in the evening. Brent Salee from UBC and Victoria's David Creel staged a cat and mouse game with Creel closing the gap 3 seconds in the final 200 but running out of space to finish 15:30.51 behind Salee's 15:29.48