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Swimmers shine at AAA meet

The Great Trail Swim Club competed in its most challenging meet to date at the Swim BC AAA Short Course championship.

The Great Trail Swim Club competed in its most challenging meet to date at the Swim BC AAA  Short Course  championship in Victoria last week, but still came away with great results.

Fruitvale’s Eden Kormendy was a triple medal winner in the female 12 and under category, swimming to silver in the 200 Individual Medley (IM), and a pair of bronze medals in the 100 and 200 breaststroke.

“Eden did amazing and caught a lot of attention from college coaches,” said GTSC coach Cody Flegel. “A lot of coaches were commenting about how well she swims technically.”

Indeed, Kormendy laid down times that would be competitive in any college meet, and she is only 12 years old, added Flegel.

Eden’s brother Dylan Kormendy also had some incredible swims for a nine year old swimming in the 11-and-under division. Kormendy finished fifth in B.C. in the 100 butterfly, eighth in the 200 backstroke in addition to a number of personal bests.

Sharman Thomas also did well dropping time off of his personal bests in every race on his way to two “A” finals in which he placed sixth in the 100-m. backstroke and eighth for the 200-m backstroke.

But the breakout swim of the meet went to Ian Markus who swam a personal best and made two finals, including taking fifth spot in the 50 m. freestyle in the 11 and under boys category.

At the Kelowna meet in January, Markus dropped his time from 35 seconds to a 32.29 in the 50 free. This weekend, the young swimmer  swam an electrifying 30.98 to qualify, then in the final he took off more time again, going a 30.61 and finishing just 1.14 seconds behind the gold-medal winner.

“A month ago his goal was to qualify for the meet and now he not only qualified but made a final and finished fifth in the province,” said Flegel.

Aby Elwood also had a good showing, just missing finals and finishing ninth and 10th in 200 and 100-m. fly respectively.

Maddison Green went best times in multiple events including a 1:02.07 in the 100-m. freestyle which puts her 19th in the province for her age.

While Jennifer Chung erased seconds from numerous swims including a four-second drop from her personal best in the 200-m. breaststroke.

James Pilla rounded out the exceptional performances, going a personal best of 59.37 in the 100 m. butterfly, breaking the one minute barrier which has been a goal of his for a long time.

“Considering he hasn’t started his taper yet, as he is focusing on World Championship trials on Apr. 3, that is a great sign that he is going to swim fast in a month,” said Flegel.

 



Jim Bailey

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