Sadownik Memorial 2025
On behalf of Fort St John Inconnu Swim Club I would like to express my thorough gratitude to the volunteers and staff for making the annual Inconnu Sadownik Memorial swim meet a resounding success!
Held in honour of Steve Sadownik and his wife Nicole, the annual competition saw Inconnu welcome guests from Grande Prairie Piranhas and Peace River Wahoos swim clubs for two days of some excellent fast swimming over the weekend of November 29/30.
Inconnu swimmers just a fortnight removed from excellent performances in Grande Prairie hit the water again, this time with a good representation from the grassroots programs led by coaches Elyse Martin, Karen Mason-Bennett and Tim Novytski, who oversaw a plethora of youngsters taking their first step in the competitive setting of their swimming careers. It is always a thrill seeing these young athletes make that very first swim and serves as a reminder of the importance of developing a nurturing environment throughout the club in order to see successes translate to the highest levels.
A special mention goes out to 11 year-old Artur Sadykov who showed terrific technical execution of his butterfly events greatly improving on the already massive swims in Grande Prairie. On a more “senior” side of things the competition served as another building block toward the overall development of the club’s top athletes with many concentrating on their “non-traditional” events with Leo Rossi showing excellent form in the 200m breaststroke discipline, Elias Stirling dropping serious times in the 400m and 800m freestyle events and Lane Stahl taking a massive step forward in the 200m individual medley.
Finishing the meet off in the traditional relay format, the spirited nature and cohesiveness of the athletes as a squad was on full display in what proved to be an excellent competition overall and a great event for the Fort St John community!
I would only like to add that it should be evident even to those not intricately familiar with the mechanisms that are required to be in place for a swimming club to reach new levels of success on what a terrific job Coaches Elyse and Tim are doing in guiding the youngsters of Inconnu forward.
Their presence on deck is always a positive and the rapport they are building with the kids is an absolute delight to watch. I want nothing more than for that to continue and to make sure that everybody at the club understands how important they are and occasionally, lets them know of the excellent job they are doing and of their importance to the program as a whole.
They say teaching is not a job but a calling, and if these two young teachers are anything to go by then the future of Inconnu is bright indeed; not to mention the obvious trickle down effect of their teaching efforts that is bound to cause a lasting positive impact of immeasurable proportions on a whole generation of kids that are swimming under their tutelage.
Head Coach Anton Titov
