Western Canadian Championships Day 4 Finals Report
26 March 2024 (Winnipeg, MB) – Day 4 was the culmination of the weekend’s racing with all pistons firing in the pool – more swimmers swam for Cascade at night on day 4 then on any of the other final sessions and it was quite a glorious sight to see!
The first event of the night was the 200m butterfly with special mention of Cuyler McNeil making his finals debut – not bad for one of our western championship’s rookie – finishing 5th overall in a new lifetime best time of 2:11.60.
The 50m freestyle was next and that “mad-dash-for-the-cash” race was fast and furious with all sorts of great performances. In the girls’ open category, it was a new lifetime best time and bronze medal to boot for Brooklyn Avey who crushed a 26.79 performance taking nearly 3/10ths off of her morning swim and nearly a half-second off of her entry time! It was also an Olympic Trials senior cut in the event. The men’s race had a couple of podium toppers with both Parker Deshayes and Yuri Kisil taking gold. Deshayes won the junior race in a lifetime best of 24.38 while Yuri annihilated the meet record for the second time in the day: the record started as a 23.09 (from 2015 and the 1st long course westerns ever) then went to 22.74 after the prelims before Kisil shot that down with his 22.35 win. Thomas Pratsch (corrected height from previous stories – he is 6’8 & 1/2”!) swam a personal best in 23.33 for silver.
Here is an interesting story, and an important lesson for our younger swimmers (and all swimmers), about Thomas. He had an official PB of 23.69 coming into the meet but recently at training camp had gone under that time three times in practice (on a set of 3x50 Max Effort on 25 minutes). Doing that in practice is a big part of the result he managed at the meet (PB by 3/10ths). That is an important message for all you youngsters out there (and…old(er?)sters as well) – you can’t expect to swim faster in a meet just because you are at a meet. You have to do it in practice. If you have never done it in practice before how are we to expect to do it in a meet? That doesn’t mean going a best time all the time in practice, necessarily, in your specific race event but all that race rehearsal done at top speed & race pace speed (starts, turns, underwater, breakouts, rating, breathing patterns, finishes, etc., etc.) that needs to be done as well as you are hoping to do at the competition for it to work!
The metric mile was next for the women and Elleigh Wise had to make a massive shift in gears – she went from the all-out 50m event about forty-five minutes earlier to having to be a magic pace machine – from the shortest event in swimming to the longest event in swimming all in the same session. She was the only swimmer in the meet to have to do that which is a great testament to both her and her coaches for managing those efforts. Elleigh dropped 13 seconds off of her personal best to get to 17:39.35 and take the bronze.
Next up were the 4x100m mixed Medley Relays and Cascade had 5 teams in the mix – ABCE and F!
It was going to be a tough one as the LOSC swimmers were looking to avenge their losses from the night before in the 4x100m Medley Relay (Cascade won the girls and won the boys) and they were out for blood!
It was pretty cool to have all the relays swum at night on the last day which certainly made for an exciting finish to the meet and an exciting finish to the end of the era that is the Western Canadian Championships. Westerns has been run every year (COVID notwithstanding) long course since 2015 and prior to that was a short course event run since 2000 (a bit on and off – but there was also a “Junior Nationals West” – all the way back in 1995!
The mixed relays are inherently exciting due to the unique nature of the male/female mix of the teams and how the lead can switch a number of times back and forth over the course of the full 400. Cascade led the way through the backstroke with the fastest leadout split of all the backstrokers in 55.94 by Cole; that was followed up by the fastest breaststroke split by any of the women in the field at 1:11.99 by Abby; Bella made the rounds on the butterfly keeping Cascade in the fight with her 1:06.55; then the task of making up the team’s 9-second deficit to Langley came down to Yuri on the end – could he accomplish “Mission Impossible”? Almost!! He made up three seconds of that ground on the first 50m chopping the hole they were in nearly in half to a little more than six seconds before closing with all he had! In the end LOSC took the relay title and Cascade finished second with some great swims. Not only did we have some great legs out of the medal winning team but also as a part of the remaining relays as well.
Cascade Teams
CASC “A” CASC “C” CASC “B” CASC “E” CASC “F” KwanTeam
4:04.21 SILVER 4:12.81 9th 4:14.34 18th 4:21.01 32nd 4:23.79 39th
Cole 55.94 Brooklyn1:07.90 Parker 58.06 Broden 1:02.22* Jenna 1:09.84*
Abigail 1:11.99* Louie 1:07.15 Camryn 1:16.84* Lilah 1:18.17 Jaxon 1:08.30
Isabella 1:06.55 Jason 58.68* Cuyler 1:00.38* Jonah 1:00.95* Ben 1:03.91*
Yuri 49.73 Madi 59.08* Chloe 59.06* Lydia 59.67* Jolie 1:01.64*
*PB Splits
Team Scores at the end of Day 4
Women
1. LOSC 963.5
2. CASC 685
3. CDSC 579.5
4. KISU 445
5. WD 383
Men
1. LOSC 1,532
2. CASC 813
3. EKSC 596
4. KAJ 438
5. GPP 347
Combined (Banner Title Race)
1. LOSC 2,016.5
2. CASC 1,305
3. KAJ 633
4. EKSC 580
5. GPP 522
Other finals results
50 Free
Elleigh Wise 27.02 6th
Chloe Baker 27.38 6th
Jonah Smith 24.84 4th
1500 Free
Keira Kennedy 18:14.64 6th
