Jeritt Brink, coach of the Quesnel Waveriders swim club is pleased with the results from a recent swim meet in Prince George.
In all, 10 swimmers from Quesnel, sporting their new track suits sponsored by Integris Credit Union, attended the meet and several collected medals and personal best times.
But it isn’t the medals or the personal best times that had Brink smiling, it was how the Waveriders swam.
“I’m extremely proud of them,” Brink said.
“They executed not only good times, but really good swimming.
“They all showed improvement in the important skills.”
One of those swimmers was Olivia Therrien.
After seven summers with the Sea Lions, Therrien is in her first season with the Waveriders. She swam in five events and collected a second-place finish in the 50-m freestyle and first place in the 100-m freestyle.
“I love the racing,” Therrien said was the best part of the weekend.
Although she collected her medals in the shorter distances, Therrien said she preferred the longer races, such as the 200-m freestyle where she posted a fifth-place finish.
“I think I’m better suited to the longer distances, the endurance races,” she said.
Garnett Currie, 11, was busy in Prince George, competing in eight events and had three top-three finishes en route to collected four AA times.
“He’s impressed me,” Brink said of Currie.
“He’s reminding me a lot of Ian Thorpe, the Australian swimmer.”
Currie said he was pleased with his effort, particularly his fourth-place finish in the 200-m breast stroke.
“I took 11 seconds off my PB time,” he said with a grin.
Billy Swyers, 8, didn’t finish in the medals, but was still smiling about posting two personal best times.
“I took 12 seconds off my time in the 25-m butterfly,” he said.
When asked the key to his success, Swyers, a Grade 3 student at Dragon Lake Elementary, was honest.
“I don’t know,” he said with a grin and a shrug of the shoulders.
Emerie Watson, 10, in her first winter club swim meet, came home with third place finishes in the 50-m backstroke and 50-m butterfly.
Janna Kovacs, 12, also had a strong weekend at the Prince George meet and was pleased with the results.
“I got a whole bunch of best times,” she said.
In all, Kovacs collected four AA times and third-place finishes in the 50-m backstroke and 100-m backstroke.
Brad Swyers, 12, competed in eight events and came home with a third-place finish in the 50-m breast stroke.
Also hitting the pool for the Waveriders were Deegan and Darby O’Hara, 7, Ryley O’Hara, 9 and Lindsay Albers, 16.
“There wasn’t a single swimmer that didn’t record a personal best,” Brink said in summarizing the weekend swim meet.
“They also thought about their technique and nailed it.”
Kovacs, Currie, and Therrien also qualified for the 19th Annual Ice Classic, Dec. 9 - 11, in Kamloops.
They qualified by posting a time of 4:00 or faster in the 200-m individual medley, a standard required to swim any 200-m event at the Kamloops swim meet.