This past weekend, the Kokanee Summer Swim Club competed at the Ogopogo Invitational Meet in Kelowna. Head Coach Jon Davies was thrilled with the results in the pool. “Three swimmers had their first meet of the year and really impressed and our senior swimmers shaved off a lot of time and proved their time in practice is paying off. I was really impressed with all six swimmers.”
Three senior swimmers and three developmental swimmers attended and all had fantastic swims. Of the developmental swimmers; Evan Bosley, Gillian Van Genne and Addison Van Genne competed in their first swim meet and impressed Davies. Despite being brand new to the experience of one of the largest swim meets of the year - all three competed strong with Addison swimming into finals against some strong competition. Van Genne finished 15 in a time of 1:39.85 in the 50m Free.
The three senior swimmers also showed well with Nicholas Cimbaro achieving best times in all his swims. Cimbaro proved he could compete with boys his age and older. He swam 50m backstroke (45.95), 100m IM(1:44.2), 50 free(35.53) and 100m free(1:21.32) finishing fourth, sixth, sixth and seventh, respectively. Ainsley Neilson also earned lots of best times and competed in the largest category of swimmers. Neilson swam 100m IM(1:53.8), 50m free(44:54), 50m back(50.59), and 50m breaststroke(57.11) finishing tenth in her backstroke and sixteenth in her breaststroke. Aidan Neilson earned best times in all his swims and finished in the top 5 in every race. He raced 100m IM(1:41.1), 50m free(40.72), 50m back(47.06), and 50m breast(52.90) finishing fifth in his first two races and third in his last 2. Aidan’s swims earned his KSSC’s Swimmer of the Meet. Congratulations Aidan. Collectively, the three swimmers took off a whole minute of swimming in their races combined.
KSSC showed great focus in the pool this weekend facing off against some of the fastest in the province. The club have a few more meets before culminating with a local meet in Merritt and the Regional meet in Kelowna. Swimmers that earn a top 3 finish in a race in their respective age division receive a berth at Provincials taking place in Richmond in August. Davies is hoping that the club can send a large amount of Kokanee swimmers to both Merritt and also Regionals to defend a regional trophy the club earned last year.