NEWS RELEASE
ORILLIA CHANNEL CATS
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The Orillia Channel Cats Swim Club have returned to competition. The local club attended three separate meets with some impressive results.
Feb. 25-27 was the Mallards Long Course Winter Invitational held in Markham at the Pan Am Centre. Twenty one swimmers from the Bronze, Silver, and Gold groups were in attendance. This was the club’s first meet since December of 2021 due to the provincial shutdown.
“Our swimmers missed all of January training but that didn’t seem to show in their results," said Channel Cats Head Coach Meredith Thompson-Edwards.
All swimmers in attendance achieved personal best times, and demonstrated improvement in technical aspects of their racing.
Blythe Wieclawek (16) set new long course club records in 50 freestyle (27.58) 50 backstroke (31.45) 100 backstroke (1:04.64), 50 butterfly (28.71) and 100 butterfly (1:05.73).
Less than a week later Wieclawek competed in the Swim Ontario Trial Prep Invite Meet held at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre that included some members of Canada’s Olympic Team. Wieclawek qualified for finals in all six of her events and placed top-6 in four of those.
New long course club records were also set in 100 free (1:00.43), 50 backstroke (30.81), 100 backstroke (1:04.57), 50 butterfly (27.92) and 100 butterfly (1:02.76).
The same weekend the local club attended the Barrie Trojan Pentathlon where swimmers had the opportunity to compete in an Ironman (200 butterfly, 800 free, 400 Individual Medley, 200 backstroke and 200 breaststroke), a middle-distance pentathlon (100 metres of each stroke and a 200 Individual medley and a sprint pentathlon (50 metres of each stroke and a 100 Individual Medley). The total time over all five events is added together to determine who the top three were in each age group.
Indiana Abram won the 14-year-old Ironman Pentathlon, Jackson Denne (14) placed third in the middle distance and sprint pentathlons, Adair Wieclawek (13) placed second in the sprint pentathlon, Maelle Bouchard (11) placed third in the middle distance and Kael Cresanto (11) placed third in the sprint pentathlon.
Swimmers in attendance at the Mallards Long Course and Barrie Pentathlon include: Maelle Bouchard, Nadine Ackert, Sam Pecorella, Sophia Brown, Isabella Brown, Kajun Butler, Grace Hunter, Esmee Rosati, Anna Holton, Alexander Baillie, Tristan Sekleski, Jaskson Denne, Zoe Baker, Arabella McFarland, Boyd Brown, Adair Wieclawek, Maelle Mooney, Emony Fisher, Ava Farigrieve, Mason Cronon, Reid Wolf-Hambsch, Fedor Radzievskii, Kael Cresanto, Indiana Abram, Hayden Nie, Peyton Nie, Evangeline Cooke, Taryn Fenton, Katie Heckendorn, Kaitlyn Allin, Grace Hunter, Anna Vurma, Erik Vurma, Aiden Lewis and Blythe Wieclawek.
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