VANCOUVER – The 61st annual Mel Zajac Jr. International Swim Meet is now underway, with the first of three nights complete inside the UBC Aquatic Centre.
The competition was fierce in the pool, with a major highlight being the Men's 50m Butterfly final, featuring a photo finish between three Olympians in Santo Condorelli (23.69 seconds), Josh Liendo (23.81), and former T-Bird
Finlay Knox (24.07).
Amongst the crop of current Thunderbird athletes,
Eloise Allen pulled off the lone individual event win of the night, earning a hard-fought victory in the Women's 100m Breaststroke (1:09.69). The quartet of
Joel Blanco,
Yuri Kisil,
Frank Ho and
Jake Gaunt later closed out the final race of the day with an exhilarating win in the Men's 4x100m Freestyle Relay.
Before the swimmers hit the water for the finals, there was first a ceremony to honour Mel Zajac Sr., the local businessman and prolific philanthropist who passed away last week at the age of 98. Zajac's dedication to the Mel Zajac Jr. International Swim Meet (named in memory of his late son) is a key reason as to how the meet has grown to become such a major event on the Canadian swimming calendar.
"Mel's influence on this particular swim meet has been unlike any other meet in Canada, what he's done here," said UBC head coach
Derrick Schoof. "His support of this meet has allowed us to bring top-quality athletes here every year, which exposes B.C. and Canadian athletes to the best swimmers in the world, and it raises the level of swimming here in Vancouver.
"Mel was a fantastic proponent of swimming and he was such an amazing individual, and I know that his legacy is going to carry on for years and years to come."
There were plenty of other of those top-quality athletes in addition to the ones already mentioned above, with the contingent of non-UBC Canadian Olympians also including Apollo Hess, who claimed first place in the Men's 100m Breaststroke (1:01.51), and Kylie Masse, who finished second in the Women's 50m Butterfly behind U.S. Junior National Team member Liberty Clark. Clark's fine day also included breaking a meet record in the 200m Freestyle (1:57.64), which had stood since 2008.
Besides Allen, other individual podium finishes for the T-Birds consisted of a trio of third-place marks.
Emma O'Croinin did so in the Women's 200m Freestyle (1:59.68), as did
Justice Migneault in the Men's 100m Breaststroke (1:02.55), finishing just over half a second ahead of teammate
Sebastian van de Logt. A similar story occurred in the Men's 400m Medley, when
Aiden Kirk (4:28.19) edged out
Tanner Cole by less than a second to take bronze.
Where the Thunderbirds shone brightest was in the 4x100m Freestyle Relays, as their excellent depth and teamwork powered them to a pair of great performances. First, the women's team of O'Croinin, Allen,
Kayla Sanchez and
Bridget Burton pulled off a time of 3:44.06, second only behind the U.S. Junior National Team and over five seconds ahead of third place.
Then came the aforementioned men's race, where two T-Bird squads each went head-to-head with the Americans. The group of Blanco, Kisil, Ho and Gaunt pulled off a comeback win by just six-tenths of a second (3:23.33), while the team of
Zachary Parise,
Kai Lilienthal,
Andrew Coombs and
Wells Ginzer finished close behind in third (3:25.87).
"We're really excited about how well we just swam," said a happy Schoof after the races concluded. "Obviously the U.S. Junior National Team is always such a good team…so for us to be able to race them like that in our own pool, that was really exciting. I think it brought out the best in our guys because obviously we want to beat them."
The action continues inside the Aquatic Centre tomorrow, with the preliminary races getting underway at 9:00 a.m. and the finals beginning at 5:30 p.m. (PT).
