The Deep River Candus dove into 2011 with a splash! Eight members of the team travelled down to Perth to participate in the Mike Brown Meet in early January. Mike Brown, a former small town swimmer from Perth has recently announced that he’s coming out of retirement to once again participate in the Olympics. Mike Brown serves as true motivator and mentor for our swimmers as he demonstrates that dreams can be achieved based on determination and hard work alone. At age 25, he is a medalist at the Commonwealth Games and has participated in two Olympics already.
Ecaterina Facina (Age 10) swam 6 events including the 50m FR, 100m FR, 200m FR, 50m BR, 100m BR and 200m IM. She took home 2 silver medals in her breaststroke events, a bronze in the 50m FR and achieved best times in all of her races. Emily Paquette (Age 11) swam best times in all her races; the 50m FR, 100m FR, 200m FR, 800m FR, 100m BK and 200m IM. Emily creamed her previous 200m FR time by 8 seconds with a final time of 2:51.95. Claire Luesink (Age 15) swam her 100m FR, 400m FR, 200m BK, and 200m IM in record times. She not only beat her seed times in preliminaries but also swam even faster in the finals! Claire is to be commended for shaving 33 seconds off her 400m FR.
Gabe Roy (Age 11) swam 4 events including the 200m FR, 400m FR, 100m BK and 400m FR. Gabe took off 6 or more seconds in all of his events and earned bronze medals for his 200m FR and 200m IM. Vincent Martel (Age 12) swam 50m FR, 400m FR, 100m BK, 100m BR, and 200m IM. He received silver medals for his 200m IM and 400m FR and bronze medals for his remaining events. He demolished 35 seconds off of his 400m FR and 15 seconds off of his 200m IM. Adam Paquette (Age 13) swam 6 events including the 200m FR, 400m FR, 200m BK, 200m BR, 200m IM, and 400m IM. Adam took off significant time in all events and advanced to finals. He received silver medals in his backstroke, breaststroke and IM and a bronze medal in his 200m FR. Matt Ackman (Age 14) swam the 200m FR, 100m BR, and 200m IM events with speed. Matt is to be commended for qualifying for an additional event provincially in his 200m IM with a final time of 2:24.40. Liam Rodger (Age 15) also had an accomplishing weekend and received best times in all of his events; 100m FR, 200m FR, 400m FR, 100m BK and 200m IM. Liam took home a bronze medal at finals in his 100m FR with a final time of 1:02.86.
Ecaterina Facina, Emily Paquette, Vincent Martel, Adam Paquette and Matt Ackman will demonstrate the Candus “Small Town, Big Wave” motto in the Eastern Ontario Regional Short Course Championships mid-February at the Nepean Sportsplex. More excitingly, the competitive swimmers are gearing up for their big trip to Thunder Bay in mid-April where they will swim against other clubs throughout Ontario at Team Championships. Stay tuned for fundraising initiatives the club will be completing over the next few months to help us get there.
