Four Langley Olympian Swim Club members had one cracker of a weekend in Victoria, recently.
Reese Blunden, 12, Renae Ledoux, 16, Hugh McNeill, 12, and 17-year-old Hillary Metcalfe each came away with one or more gold medals from the Christmas Cracker Swim Meet hosted by Pacific Coast Swimming.
A large Olympians contingent competed at the meet along with over 800 athletes from all over B.C. and three teams from Alberta. The short course (25 metre pool) meet consisted of heats and finals over three days.
With the meet being so large, all swimmers needed to race fast to make a finals swim.
LOSC swimmers were on top form and many of them made it to finals and into the top three spots.
Top three finishers included:
First place
Reese Blunden in the 12 & under girls 800 freestyle; Renae Ledoux in the 15 & over girls 100m and 200m breaststroke swims; Hugh McNeill in the 12 & under boys 1500 freestyle and 100m backstroke; and Hillary Metcalfe in the 15 & over girls 200mIM.
Second place
Ren Bedard, 12, in the 12 & under girls 200m and 800 freestyle events; Bailey Herbert, 13, in the 13-14 year girls in the 400m IM and 200m breaststroke; Brayden Kells, 14, in the 13-14 year boys 50m and 200m breaststroke swims; Joshua Kim, 13, in the 13-14 year boys 50m freestyle; Hugh McNeill in the 200m backstroke and 400m IM; Hillary Metcalfe in the 50m breaststroke, 100m breaststroke, and 200m breaststroke; Justin Schramm, 17, in the 15 & over boys 400m freestyle, 200m fly, and 400m IM; Dylan Thomas, 12, in the 12 & under boys 1500 freestyle.
Third place
Ren Bedard in the 50m, 100m, and 400m freestyle swims; Chelsea Borrowdale, 16, in the 15 & over girls 100m and 200m breaststroke events; Michael Chung, 11, in the 12 & under boys 50m backstroke; Mia Goretic, 12, in the 12 & under girls 200m freestyle; Bailey Herbert in the 100m breaststroke; Joshua Kim in the 100m breaststroke and 100m freestyle; Renae Ledoux in the 50m breaststroke; Hugh McNeill in the 400m freestyle; and Hillary Metcalfe in the 400m IM.
Brayden Kells set a new LOSC record in the 13-14 year boys 200m breaststroke with a time of 2:30.15, and Joshua Kim broke a club record in the 13-14 year boys 100m breaststroke with a time of 1:07.68.
Selina Schmelcher, 11, achieved three B.C. AAA times at the meet in order to qualify for the 2016 BC AAA Short Course Championships in Victoria in March.
“This was a tough meet for our swimmers but they produced some excellent racing, achieving lots of best times,” Olympians head coach Brian Metcalfe said. “It was good to see so many of them reaching the podium.”
Young Olympians shine
Meanwhile, a team of 10 & under LOSC were in Richmond at the VPSC/Rapids 10 & under Meet. Each swimmer competing had to swim five events over the course of the afternoon. The aggregate scores of all five events determined the places at the end of the meet.
Piyush Kaul, 10, placed third overall in the 10 year boy’s category.
Piyush also set a new club record in the 9-10 year boys 50m fly in a time of 36.04 seconds. Madison Belgica, nine, placed fifth in the 9 & under girls event and Alicia Schmelcher, nine, placed sixth.
Olympians registratio is ongoing. Call 604-532-5257 or visit the website www.langleyolympians.com for more information.