Swimming Report: CCS National Championships
Mr. Ben Smith, Aquatics Manager/National Swimming Coach today [June 15] said, “We are very pleased to have CCS as our new sponsor for this year’s National Swimming Championships. We have been working hard to make this a very exciting and successful weekend and in the end it was. This was the last local meet of the season and we were rewarded with some very fast swimming”.
He continued, “We had our Carifta medalist, elite athletes, Commonwealth team and future swimming stars all competing this weekend. Roy Allan Burch was back from his training program in Germany and he has brought some of his team mates back to give our swimmers some more competition”.
There were also guest swimmers from Canada and the US who all helped push our local swimmers to even faster times. Finally, we were also excited to see some of our Masters swimmers participating as well as some of our former elite swimmers that showed that the pool is a great equalizer when it comes to age.
Day 1 at CCS Nationals
The first session of the CCS Bermuda National swimming Championships held on Friday night was a resounding success. After the anthem was played and the swimmers paraded to applause from the crowds, the splash in the pool resulted in fast times on the clock. Lisa Blackburn started things off in the heats of the 50 Breaststroke where she bettered her time and made the qualifying standard for this year’s CAC games. The other highlight of the evening came in the men’s 1500 meters where Mitch Gariepy and Tyler Smith battled it out. Tyler finished first but Mitch continued to rewrite the record books in his age group by dropping 44 seconds from the record that he set back in March.
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Lisa Blackburn. Photo credit Doug Patterson
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Day 2 at CCS Nationals
The second day of the meet was very exciting with Lisa Blackburn continuing her fine form from the previous night. In the finals of the 50 breast where she made her CAC time she lowered her prelim time by half a second and broke Anastasia Lau’s open record while capturing the gold medal. She followed that swim up with an even better swim in the 100 breast where she broke a record set in 1992 by Jennifer Smatt. Lisa is rounding into top form just in time for the upcoming overseas meets. In the past Lisa swam for Canada and was a medalist at both the Pan Am and Commonwealth Games. We are happy to have her in our program and looking forward to what she will be able to do in the upcoming meets.
This year, relays were added to Nationals and they have been a resounding success. There was lots of excitement and fast swims with the added incentive of swimming for your team. The medley relay was on the cards and Harbour swim club set records with their girls 9&10 relay and also the 11&12 girls relay. The 11&12 girls only held the record for a few hours as the team from Sharks came back to shatter that record in the finals. Sharks teams also captured records in the 13&14 girls, 17&18 boys and the senior girls and boys set pool records. All of these teams set the records in the morning heats and then lowered them in the finals. Roy Burch swam an impressive 51 seconds for the 100 free considering the grueling training schedule that he is on in preparation for CISC and CAC games. We also were pleased to see some familiar names back in the pool swimming very well in the finals. Graham Smith who is a past elite level swimmer’s for Bermuda gave Julian Fletcher a duel in the breaststroke and our past Olympian Ian Raynor was back giving Roy some competition in the 50 fly.
Day 3 CCS National Championships
The meet continued to showcase some very fast swims on the third and final day. The attack on the records continued with young Mitch Gariepy bettering his own 200 IM record and the good form from the medley relay teams from the previous day continued in the freestyle as they set and reset those freestyle records on Sunday. The 100 butterfly for men was the highlight of the final night. There was a battle for first place between Denzel Wellman and Nick Patterson with Nick Patterson touching Denzel out at the finish to much excitement. Nick’s time set a new 15&16 year old record and he took the record from Denzel. In the same race Mitch Gariepy lowered the record of Stephen Fahey from 1988. Lisa Blackburn finished her great meet off by winning the high point trophy for the women and Jason Mastalir was the Champion for the men.
In closing Mr. Smith said, “This weekend was a great highlight of Bermuda swimming. Many thanks go out to our sponsor CCS and to the swim committee that helped to organize such a successful meet with our overseas competitors adding such great competition for our swimmers. Having our top athletes at home competing in front of their home crowd is always exciting and they performed well with the added expectations. This bodes well for the upcoming overseas meets where we hope to see them perform even better. This meet highlighted some of our upcoming talent in the younger age groups. This was an open competition that had a qualifying standard so they had to step up to qualify and at the meet they stepped up further against the older, more senior swimmers. Even more noteworthy was the spontaneous mentoring by the older swimmers, offering advice and encouragement to these younger swimmers, who are the future of the sport of swimming in Bermuda. Great job to all the swimmers that participated over the weekend and special great job to Lisa for hitting her qualifying time”!
