Local swimmers may have been small in numbers but were mighty in results at the B.C. Summer Swimming Association regionals in Kamloops last weekend.
All 10 members of the Penticton Pikes Summer Swim Club qualified for the upcoming provincial championships at the event.
Two of the competitors, Jacob McNamee, 10, and Ryan McMillan, 11, each brought home gold medals in all of their events at the Brocklehurst Recreation Centre.
McNamee was competing in the Div. 2 category and was first in the 100-metre individual medley, 50M freestyle, 50M breaststroke and backstroke.
McMillan topped the results in Div. 3 50M freestyle, 100M freestyle 50M butterfly and 100M individual medley.
“Most of the swimmers who attended regionals have demonstrated fantastic work ethic throughout the summer in terms of coming to practice and putting in a tremendous amount of effort into training,” said Pikes head coach Kara Declark.
“We will be training for another week and a half leading up to provincials. The main focus will be maintenance and fixing any general technical skills that we noticed during regionals especially in turns and dives.”
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The coach also credited the efforts of some of her other individual competitors at the recent event.
“Landon Stephens,14 (Division 5) did an amazing job in his 100M backstroke to overtake a swimmer from Princeton and grab a spot on the provincial team (with a third place in the 100M backstroke) and Victoria Pennington, 12, had 100 per cent best times at the meet and narrowly missed qualifying for an individual spot on the provincial team in three of her races.
“Our two O-cat (O category) swimmers Ashley McMillan and Ben Say demonstrated great leadership throughout the weekend and were both great influences for our summer swimmers.”
Pennington meanwhile earned a place on the Division 4, 4x50M freestyle and 4x50M freestyle and medley relay teams with three fourth-place finishes.
Other provincial qualifiers from the regionals were: Rosanna McNamee: Div. 1 (50M backstroke) Issabella Cumming: Div. 5 (100M breaststroke, 4x50M freestyle and medley relay) Sienna Vieira: Div. 4 (4x50M freestyle and medley relay) Joycey Cheng: Div. 4 (4x50M freestyle and medley relay).
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