VANCOUVER – The highlights began early on the second day of the Mel Zajac Jr. International Swim Meet, when Kylie Masse dove into the pool in the Women's 50m Backstroke prelims. 27.64 seconds later she broke the meet record, shaving half a second off the previous high-water mark.
Making sure to not rest on her laurels, Masse proceeded to break the record a second time in the evening session, claiming gold while timed at 27.47. That stands as the fifth-fastest time recorded anywhere in the world so far this year.
One of the other top female swimmers in the pool this weekend has been UBC's
Emma O'Croinin, who followed up yesterday's gold in the 200m Freestyle with one in the 400m Freestyle, crushing the field with a time of 4:18.76, over three seconds ahead of second place.
"Emma's very consistent," remarked Thunderbirds head coach
Derrick Schoof. "I mean, she's an Olympian, right? She knows what she's doing and she's going to get in there and compete every time she's off the blocks…as well in our men's breaststroke tonight, we had T-Birds go 1-2-3 there so I was really thrilled about that."
That breaststroke race in question was the Men's 200m event, won by
Justice Migneault who topped the podium for his first time at this year's tournament. He was followed close behind by
Tanner Cole and
Finlay Knox, with Knox also adding silver in an incredibly tight 50m Backstroke that was decided by four-hundredths of a second.
The other T-Bird medal on the day came from former and future UBC athlete Yuri Kisil, who placed first in the Men's 50m Freestyle in a race that featured four other Thunderbirds in the "A" Final.
Joel Blanco,
Kai Lilienthal and
Olivier Risk all recorded fourth-place finishes on the day to just miss out on the podium, while
Bridget Burton,
Jake Gaunt and
Frank Ho all placed fifth in one of their respective races.
There's just one more day to go at this year's Mel Zajac Jr. meet, with twelve more events set for each of the morning and evening sessions. The first swims of the day get underway at 9:00 a.m. (PT) on Sunday, while the finals start at 5:30 p.m. (PT).
