The Trail Stingrays took some time off their most intense training week to attend the Castlegar swim meet on the weekend – that is, if only swimming a couple miles can be considered a rest.
To start the meet, the Stingrays won the Subway swim-a-thon challenge where all teams in the region hold a swim-a-thon and the club that achieves the highest participation rate and the fastest average time over one-mile is awarded a six-foot sub at the Castlegar event.
“The team hasn’t won this since 2004 so this was a great achievement and the team was very excited to win the challenge,” said Stingrays coach Ryan Gurney.
The Ray racers then went on to collect a bundle of medals and finally, to top off another successful weekend, defeated six other teams in the one-mile relay at the end of the meet.
In what is the final race Sunday, teams select their top eight swimmers to each swim a 200-metre freestyle for a total of 1,600 metres. The Stingrays’ relay team of Eric Gonzalez, Samme Beatson, Oleg Liferovich, Jennifer Chung, Jerome Santiago, Christine Cook, Timothy Chung and Martin Gonzalez cruised to victory in 16 minutes and 34 seconds.
They also had an impressive finish in the team standings, entering only 29 swimmers in the event, compared to over 50 for first- place Castlegar.
“Finishing second overall was another great accomplishment for the club,” said Gurney. “Our points per swimmer are undeniably the best in the region.”
Kayla Fraser, Eden Kormendy, Martin Gonzalez, Jennifer Chung and Samme Beatson all captured gold in their respective divisions, while Dylan Kormendy, Tess Markus, Jovan Santiago, Jerome Santiago, and Samantha Theobold won silver and Oleg Liferovich picked up a bronze.
Beatson also set a new meet record in the Div. 7 girls 100-metre backstroke with a time of 1:15.82
The Stingrays are back in the pool this Saturday and Sunday at the Kimberley swim meet.