Seals Take Home 30 Medals, Add Another Qualifier at Provincials

The St. James Seals were represented by 10 swimmers this past weekend at Swim Manitoba's Manitoba Open Junior Provincial 2023 Short Course Championships at Pan Am Pool. Swimmers competed over 3 days and 4 sessions in the biannual provincial event trying to race their way to personal bests, medals, and Man/Sask qualifiying standards for early March. 

Seals swimmers took home almost 30 medals over the 3 day event; earning 7 gold, 11 silver, and 11 bronze. Impressively, each swimmer who competed at the championship collected at least 1 medal. The girls side was lead by strong performances by Pinnacle swimmers, Abby De Belen & Maddie Reimer, who looked to add to their Man/Sask standards ahead of the March meet. This was paired with fantastic performances from 10&U Premiere swimmers, Will Rees & Ronan West, who broke through on the boys side as the two swimmers were competing in their first and second Junior Provincials, respectively. 

Age Group Elite swimmer Logan Bessas punched his ticket to Saskatoon, SK with an adrenaline filled lead-off of the Mixed 200m Freestyle Relay on Saturday morning. Bessas doubled down by matching the Man/Sask standard on the way to a medal performance in the Men's 50m Freestyle on Sunday. Logan joins 6 other Seals swimmers who have qualified to travel to Saskatoon in 2 weeks for the Man/Sask Provincial Championships (March 2-5).

Congratulations to all of the Seals who competed this weekend & a big thank you to all who volunteered to make this event possible!

Girls:

De Belen, Abby

Lunin, Liya

Reimer, Maddie

Thiessen, Asha

Boys:

Bessas, Logan

Bewick, Lucas

Rees, William

Tamang, Nathaniel

West, Ronan

Wiebe, Max

For complete results, please see the Swim Manitoba website: https://www.swimmanitoba.mb.ca/junior-provincials

*At the time of writing, the High Point Awards for both clubs & swimmers have not been awarded.

**UPDATE: Feb 15th**: After the points were verified and tallied, the St. James Seals were awarded the Small Club High Point Award for the 2023 Short Course Junior Provincial Championships!