Sault Surge wins 143 medals at home pool invitational

The Sault Surge Aquatic Team hosted its spring invitational meet this past weekend.

Athletes from Thunder Bay, Kapuskasing and Michigan joined 70 local athletes at the John Rhodes Community Centre Pool.

Sault Surge Aquatic Team combined to set 353 new personal best times, win 50 gold medals, 46 silver, and 47 bronze medals.

Find the full news release from the Sault Surge Aquatic Team, including results, below:

The Sault Surge Aquatic Team hosted a successful spring invitational meet this past weekend at the John Rhodes Community Centre Pool. Athletes representing clubs from Thunder Bay, Kapuskasing and Michigan were in attendance.

70 athletes from the local Sault Surge Aquatic Team combined to set 353 new personal best times, win 50 gold medals, 46 silver, and 47 bronze medals.

Finnley Walker, 9, had a strong showing as he was amongst 6 Surge swimmers who set new personal best times every time that they dove into the pool to race. Walker also came away with a silver medal in the 12 under boys 25m backstroke. Other swimmers that swam to all personal best times were Claire Austin, Blake Krivan, Asher Leask, Emily Porco, and Audrey Vossos.

An exciting aspect of the meet was the opportunity for swimmers to pick up a championship Tee shirt for winning a 50m event for each of the 4 strokes that were raced for in an exciting preliminary, semi-final and final format.

Sault Surge swimmers racing to victory and earning a commemorative shirt were Georgia Burns in the girls 13/over 50m butterfly along with 2 bronze medals.

Andrew Li picked up 3 shirts for wins in the 13/over boy’s backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly along with 2 other gold medals as well as a silver and 2 bronze medals.

Sophia Li earned championship shirts in the girls 12/under freestyle and backstroke events along with 5 other gold medals.

Brie Reid picked up a win in the 13 over girls 50m breaststroke event along with gold in the 100m and 200m breaststroke events as well as 2 silver medals and 4 bronze medals.

Mia Lloyd swam to victory in the girls 13/over freestyle event to take home a shirt along with 2 silver and 3 bronze medals.

Graduating swimmers Kevin Li and Erik Kary had strong swims as they geared up to head to post-secondary programs. Kary, 18, picked up 3 gold medals and 3 silver medals. Kary has yet to make a commitment to a program yet, but is gaining attention from the Brock Badgers in St. Catherines, Ontario. Li committed to Mount Allison University in New Brunswick and swam to a gold, 2 silver medals and 1 bronze.

Will Paranuik, 10, added another 2 qualification standards to the Ontario Festivals championships that will be happening in June in Toronto.

Of note, Zoe Hagard of the Thunder Bay Narwal swim club set an unofficial Ontario Para s9 provincial record in the 50m Butterfly in a time of 41.31.

The Sault Surge holds their annual Swim-A-Thon Fundraiser this Saturday May 4 at the John Rhodes pool. Swimmers will swim for 200 lengths or 2 hours to raise money for pool-time and equipment.

Paige Banton represents the team at the upcoming Olympic Trials meet scheduled in Toronto May 13-19.

The club travels to Thunder Bay for the Thunderbolts annual grand prix meet May 24-26. Team athletes also continue to train for Provincial and National level meets scheduled for June and July.