The Yorkton Storm Swim Club sent five swimmers to the Saskatoon Goldfins Winter Classic Meet this past weekend. The meet was set up in conjunction with the Regina Optimist Dolphins Swim Club.
Regina hosted a meet one weekend with several races offered, followed by Saskatoon doing the same with a different set of races. The athletes in attendance were able to complete a competition cycle that saw them race preliminaries in the morning and then return for finals in the races they had qualified in that evening.
“Running two meet like this, virtually back to back allows for our athletes to compete in races not typically offered at a meet” said head coach Ashley Benko, adding “The format of prelim’s and finals takes a lot for a swimmer to get used to, so it was great to have two weekends set up like this prior to the short course championship meets that will be coming up shortly.”
Two swimmers found their way to the podium at the meet in Saskatoon. Ella Kozak won the silver in the 200m Freestyle, and then followed that up with a bronze in the 50m Freestyle event. Kozak will be competing at the Man-Sask Meet for the first time and is looking forward to the event.
Jennifer Haczkewicz was the other Storm swimmer to medal in Saskatoon. She won bronze in the 200m Freestyle and a second bronze in the 100m Backstroke. En route to the medals Haczkewicz broke her own 200m Free record that she set last December in Regina by a whopping seven seconds.
She also broke the club record for the 400m Individual Medley by six seconds. The 400m IM record had been set by Gloria Liebrecht and had stood since 1990.
Haczkewicz also won the ‘High Points Award’ for Backstroke between the two meets. Benko explained the award as, “Every time you swim a race you get 10 points for first place, eight points for second, and so on, and at the end of the meet Jen had amassed the most points of all the girls who swam the backstroke events over the course of the two weekends.”
Bryant Jones also had a great meet in Saskatoon. Jones won the ‘Storm Chaser Award’ by taking an average of 11.46 seconds off per each of his six swims in Saskatoon. Coach Benko was incredibly impressed with his efforts in Saskatoon, saying, “He swam his 50m Free in 29.83, literally just 72 hundredths off of his ‘AA’ time.
“Swimming the ‘AA’ time will qualify him for the Man-Sask Meet.”
The next action for the club will be the ‘A’ Short Course Provincials in Moose Jaw held at the end of February.
