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Laurentian University Cuts Men’s And Women’s Swim Teams

Laurentian University has announced that they will be cutting both their men’s and women’s varsity swim teams. The team has been led by head coach Phil Park for 2 decades and was named the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) women’s coach of the year for the 2019-2020 season. At their most recent conference championships in February of 2020, the men’s team placed 6th at OUAs while the women placed 5th, both out of 11 teams. At the 2020 USPORT Championships, Canada’s collegiate national championship meet, the Laurentian women finished in 22nd out of 23 teams while the men’s team did not score.

The decision comes amid major institution-wide cutbacks which also includes 58 of its undergraduate programs, accounting for nearly a third of the school’s course offerings according to the Globe & Mail.

Also according to the Globe & Mail, the university found itself weeks away from being unable to meet its payroll after having accumulated nearly $100 million in debt.

Earlier this year, it was announced that the Laurentian University swimming pool required at last $10 million in repairs;

Just a month and a half ago a group of former swimmers at Laurentian University made a donation of  $8,000 to assist in the necessary renovations to the pool. After receiving confirmation, however, that the donation was received, two members of that group tell CTV News in the following interview that they were informed that the money went missing:

On the same day that the swimming teams were to be cut, sources confirmed that the school would also be cutting both the men’s and women’s hockey programs.

A number of current and past swimmers, along with members of the Ontario swimming community have shared their thoughts on the news over the past few days via social media;

https://www.instagram.com/p/CNk2ozfluoN/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

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Laura Young
3 years ago

Not the pool specifically but the entire building needs $10 million but LU would never explain.

Donald Blake
3 years ago

Sad to see any piece of Canadian swimming landscape shuttered. This was the home pool for Alex Baumann who broke a number of the World’s records and also won two Olympic Gold medals while swimming for this program under coach Doc Tihanyi.

M Palota
3 years ago

It’s only mentioned in passing in the article but Laurentian is Alex Bauman’s alma mater. Such a sad, sad day.

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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