2022 CANADA WEST CHAMPIONSHIPS
- November 25-27, 2022
- University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
- Short Course Meters (25 meters), Prelims/Finals
- Results on Meet Mobile: “2022 Canada West Swimming Championships”
- Full Meet Results (PDF)
Lethbridge’s Apollo Hess wrapped a sweep of the breaststroke events and Calgary’s Rebecca Smith won her 4th event of the meet on Sunday to wrap up the 2022 Canada West Championships. The country’s only mid-season conference championship meet, teams will return to training and racing ahead of February’s U Sports Canadian collegiate championship meet.
The pair were named the Men’s and Women’s Swimmer of the Meet, respectively.
Hess swam 2:10.25 in the 200 breaststroke to win by several meters ahead of the runner-up Frederik Kamminga of Alberts (2:12.98).
That completed a sweep for Hess of the breaststroke races at this meet, after winning the 50 meter event in a new Canadian Record of 26.63 on Friday and swimming a new personal best in the 100 (58.55) on Saturday. This 200 meter win was the first of his three events on the weekend where he didn’t swim a best time – he was 2:08.32 to win last year’s U Sports title.
On the women’s side of racing, it was Calgary 3rd year Rebecca Smith who cemented top individual honors on the weekend with a fourth individual win, taking the 100 free in 53.88. That put her two seconds ahead of fellow Canadian international Emma O’Croinin, who was 2nd in 55.86.
Smith previously won the 50 free (25.10), 200 free (1:54.97), and 50 fly (26.46) at the meet.
Even with Smith in the lineup, though, O’Croinin and the UBC women flexed their depth to win the closing 400 medley relay in 4:03.63, a second ahead of Calgary. In spite of Smith’s individual dominance, the Thunderbirds won two of the three relays on the weekend.
The big difference-maker for UBC in this relay was Eloise Allen on the breaststroke leg, splitting 1:06.67. That was a three-and-a-half second margin for UBC, which offset Smith’s 57.7 fly leg for Calgary.
It was that UBC depth that carried the women’s team to the overall meet win by about 100 points ahead of Calgary. The Calgary men pulled off a 64.5-point win over UBC in what is likely a previous for the spring’s U Sports championship meet.
FINAL TEAM STANDINGS
WOMEN’S
- UBC Thunderbirds / 918 points
- Calgary Dinos / 810.5 points
- Victoria Vikes / 547.5 points
- Manitoba Bisons / 273.5 points
- Alberta Pandas / 270 points
- Lethbridge Pronghorns / 184.5 points
- Regina Cougars / 72 points
MEN’S
- Calgary Dinos / 924.5 points
- UBC Thunderbirds / 860 points
- Lethbridge Pronghorns / 361.5 points
- Victoria Vikes / 351 points
- Alberta Golden Bears / 342 points
- Regina Cougars / 183 points
- Manitoba Bisons / 90 points
- Thompson Rivers WolfPack / 3 points
Meet Awards:
- Men’s Community Service Award – Mark Mckenzie (Calgary Dinos)
- Women’s Community Service Award – Olivia Roschat (Victoria Vikes)
- Women’s Coach of the Year – Derrick Schoof (UBC Thunderbirds)
- Men’s Coach of the Year – Peter Schori (Lethbridge Pronghorns)
- Women’s Rookie of the Meet – Eloise Allen (UBC Thunderbirds)
- Men’s Rookie of the Meet – Charlie Skalanda (Calgary Dinos)
- Women’s Swimmer of the Meet – Rebecca Smith (Calgary Dinos)
- Men’s Swimmer of the Meet – Apollo Hess (Lethbridge Pronghorns)
- Women’s Team Champion – UBC Thunderbirds
Men’s Team Champion – Calgary Dinos
Other Day 3 Winners – Men
- UBC and Calgary each picked up multiple men’s event wins on the final day of competition. Calgary opened the scoring with a win in the 100 free from 24-year-old 3rd year Stephen Calkins. His 47.71 beat out UBC’s Blake Tierney (48.70) by almost a second. UBC had two on the podium thanks to a third-place finish from Canek Brancho.
- Tierney would fight back later to win the 100 backstroke in 52.44, which was almost a full second margin for him as well. That completed a three-race sweep of the backstroke events for him after winning the 50 (24.45) and 200 (1:54.40) earlier in the meet. The 50 tied the Canada West Record.
- Justice Migneault of UBC won the men’s 200 IM in 1:59.69. He is the defending U Sports champion in the event, about a second-and-a-half faster.
- Calgary’s Nathan Versluys ended the individual racing in the meet with a win in the 400 free in 3:53.18. That adds to a prior individual win in the 400 IM.
- The UBC men didn’t win the meet, but they did get the final punch, winning the 400 medley relay comfortably in 3:34.29. That time would have won last year’s U Sports Championship (where UBC was disqualified and stripped of a U Sports record after their backstroker Tayden de Pol was suspended for doping). The runners-up on Sunday were Hess and the Lethbridge Pronghorns in 3:36.71 – officially the defending U Sports Champions. Calgary was 3rd in 3:37.73.
- U Victoria 4th year Padric Mckervill won the men’s 200 fly to open the session in 1:59.36. He was the only swimmer under two minutes in the race. He was also just fourth in prelims, but bounced back with a big seven-second improvement in finals for gold.
Other Day 3 Winners – Women
- The UBC women had the run of the final day of competition, winning most of the day’s races. Besides the relay, that included a session-opening win by Josie Field in the 200 fly in 2:11.71. That was her second-consecutive Canada West title in the event, after placing 2nd in 2019.
- Anna Dumont-Belanger gave UBC their 2nd win of the day in the 200 IM, touching in 2:15.20. UBC went 1-2-4 in that race, with Camryn Stannard (2:16.08) and Hannah Bennett (2:18.32) joining Dumont-Belanger in the top half of the A-final.
- After placing runner-up to Smith in the 100 free, Emma O’Croinin got her Sunday win with a 4:14.74 in the 400 free – more than three seconds ahead of the field. She previously picked up a win in the 800 free individually, along with two relay victories. Dumont-Belanger was 2nd in this 400 free (4:18.07) as part of another 1-2-4 finish for UBC.
- Calgary 2nd-year Hannah Johnsen joined Smith as final-day winners for the Dinos. She topped the field in the women’s 100 backstroke in 1:00.21. That’s faster than she swam for 6th place at last year’s U Sports Championships and is just a few-tenths from her lifetime best. She is now two-for-two in Canada West titles in this 100 back, as she is in the 200 back that she won earlier in the meet. She held off a personal best from UVic’s Lauren Crisp, who was 2nd in 1:01.01. Manitoba’s Megan Mozill finished 3rd in 1:01.06.
- The UVic women showed class in the women’s 200 breaststroke field with a dominating 1-2 finish. 1st year Erin Epp won in 2:29.59 and Sophie Tarrant was 2nd in 2:30.03, almost two seconds ahead of the field. Epp is from Kelowna, BC and the Kelowna Aquajets, the home club of 2015 NCAA 200 breaststroke champion Kierra Smith.
Pretty fast meet (not only due to the presence of Emelie Fast..) on the women’s side in Stockolm last weekend: Swimrankings – Sm/Jsm (25m), Stockholm (SWE), 23 – 27 Nov 2022 , with a lot of SCM PBs. Among them also some from the youngsters Lisa Nystrand (born in 2006) and Emmy Hallqvist (2008), but above all interesting results from Junevik (fly and free), Astedt and Hall (free), Rosvall (back), Thormalm, Klinta Ipsa and the above mentioned Fast (breast) to increase Swedish depth in the womens relays. For Sara Sjostrom a good 23.59 in the lead-off of the 4×50 free relay, a 52.15 split in the 4×100 free relay and a 24.74 fly split in the 4×50 medley relay.
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