West Island’s finest swimmers strut stuff

BY MICHAEL PIASETZKI

The Claude Robillard Centre in Montreal was the scene last weekend of the Speedo Eastern Swimming Championships, with splashers from all three West Island swim clubs strutting their stuff.

The Pointe Claire Swim Club (PCSC), Beaconsfield Bluefins and Dollard des Ormeaux swim clubs attended the open meet, which featured a mix of the best youth, age-group and top senior-level athletes swimmers from Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. Beginning Thursday afternoon and wrapping up Sunday night, the meet was run concurrently with the Speedo Western Swimming Championships in Regina. A combined meet database, run by Swimming Canada, scored the two meets against each other, allowing swimmers to experience a competition of national proportion.

For Pointe Claire, a club assistant head coach Jason Chugh said in December is determined to develop a program of excellence, the meet was nothing less than a success. Bolstered by the recent return of Olympic hopeful Tobias Oriwol to its stable, PCSC equaled its fourth place finish from last year’s Eastern championships, totalling 887.5 points finishing behind Piscine Parc Olympique, Etobicoke Swim Club, and the Toronto Swim Club. Not far behind though, were the Bluefins. Riding on the shoulders of its Olympic-hopeful troika of Stephanie Horner, Gabrielle Soucisse and Karah Stanworth-Belleville, it finished with an impressive 653 points — 586 of which came from its women.

“This was a real team effort,” said PCSC head coach Peter Carpenter. “Having Oriwol certainly helped our cause, but we couldn’t have finished as well as we did without the help of all of our swimmers and especially our great relay teams.”

Pointe Claire men captured silver in the 4X100- and 4X200-metre relays, with the Bluefins women winning silver in the 4X100-metre relay.

Horner, 17, now training at the National Training Centre under Paul Bergen and Pointe Claire resident Benoit Brunet won gold in the 200-metre medley and butterfly and 400-metre freestyle as well as silver in the 200-metre backstroke and 400-metre medley.

She finished with a time of 4:11.40 in the 400-metre freestyle, with Toronto’s Zsofia Balazs ending up second in 4:13.08 and Etobicoke’s Alexa Komarnycky third in 4:13.33.

“I wanted to get into the 4:10 range in that race,” Horner said. “But I was still pleased in general. It’s a good sign for the upcoming Pan Am Games trials. I wasn’t fully prepared for this meet however I still wanted to go out and win as many races as I could.”

Soucisse, 16, won gold in the 50- 100- and 200-metre backstroke while Stanworth-Belleville picked up silver and bronze respectively in the 100- and 50-metre backstroke. Meanwhile, Pointe Claire’s Samantha Cheverton, 18, won silver in the 1,500-metre freestyle.

“I believe that proves she (Cheverton) is one of the most technically-sound swimmers in the country,” Carpenter said.

Oriwol, 21, won gold in the 200- and 400-metre medley and 200-metre butterfly as well as bronze in the 200-metre backstroke while PCSC’s Steven Bielby, 17, earned bronze in the 400-metre medley.

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