Firstly.... WOW is the Gatineau pool amazing! Just a big, beautiful and FAST! 50m pool. If you placed that facility in Ontario it would instantly become the best long course facility we would have but unfortunately for us in Ontario it's just across the border. Swim Ontario might have been smart to just put Provincials in Gatineau instead of Nepean anyways, I came away very impressed with the new facility and hope that the Pan AM Games people can look at the Gatineau facility and try to build a pair of pools that are equally well designed and fast.
Unfortunately there's no true warm down pool so you probably won't see Senior Nationals held there but a short course would be well served to come to Gatineau.
As for the swimming, I thought there was some pretty good racing especially given how close we are to Trials. Less then 40 days out and there are clearly some people swimming very well.
On the women's side
- Katerine Savard is a beast. 26.55, 58.32, 2:10.01. She's on top of her game and a definite player come London.
- NKB's 16-year old Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson is coming along well winning the 100 & 200BR and scoring a big psychological victory in the 200IM over Erica Morningstar
- Brittany Maclean is consistently very good and looks good heading towards Trials
- nice victory for hometown hero Karyn Jewell in the 400IM (4:50.42) but it'll be tough for her to work down to the low 4:40s and have a chance at Trials
- between Seltenreich-Hodgson, Jewell, and Olivia Feschuk (HTAC), Canada's IM future on the women's side is pretty bright heading towards Rio but keep an eye on an emerging 12 year old star from MEGO Mary-Sophie Harvey...
- 12 years old... 5:06 400IM, 1:03.41 100FL... both Long Course... pretty damn impressive
On the men's side...
- The men's side was not as deep as the women's meet, with some good eastern Canadian swimmers electing not to participate
- David Sharpe's (HTAC) performance in the 200FL was pretty sharp (pardon the pun) 2:00.97 was a noteworthy performance
- Mike Brown came in from Calgary and showed well in the 200BR but struggled mightily in the 100BR
- Pascal Wolloch showed well winning the 50 & 100BK
- just not as dynamic a meet on the men's side as it was on the women's side of the meet
Overall the addition of the long course finals in this Olympic year was a good idea as some swimmers really showed well and received a good long course racing opportunity close to Trials. Most of all I remember this weekend for a fast pool that should put Gatineau on the swimming map as a good place to hold fast meets.
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