UBC Thunderbirds swimmer Coleman Allen was honoured as the CIS Male Swimmer of the Year after an outstanding performance at the CIS Swimming Championship at the University of Toronto. The third-year Arts student earned five gold medals and two silvers at the national meet, with two of the wins coming in record-breaking fashion.
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On the first day of the event, Allen raced to the finish in the 100-metre butterfly in a time of 51.44 seconds, bettering his own CIS record in the event. He began the night with a gold-medal finish in the 200m freestyle race, winning in 1:45.13. To cap off the first night, Allen, along with Luke Peddie, Sergey Holson and Stefan Milosevic, won the 4x100m freestyle relay in 3:16.21.
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In the third-last event of day two, Allen just missed another gold, taking second place in the men’s 200m butterfly with a time of 1:55.28. He returned to the pool shortly after to compete in the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay, the final race of the night. Allen teamed up with three rookies, Milosevic, Jonathan Brown and Justin Chan, to set a new CIS and Canadian short course record of 7:09.50.
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Allen won two more medals on day three, with a silver in the 100m freestyle (48.75) and a gold in the 4x100m medley relay (3:34.10). Allen moved UBC into first place during his butterfly leg, overtaking rivals Calgary.
