Star swimmer Liz Warden added another trophy to her already cluttered case this weekend with a gold medal win at the World Cup in New York City. Burning through the 200 m backstroke, Warden shaved more than a full second off her previous best time and walked away with $1500 in prize money. She also placed 4th in the 200 m Individual Medley (IM), 5th in the 400 m IM, 5th in the 100 m IM, and 8th in the 100 m backstroke.
“It shows that [Warden] is continuing to be on track in her Olympic year preparation,” says Blues head swimming coach Byron MacDonald. Warden, who is finishing her final year of coursework at U of T, is no longer eligible to swim for the Varsity Blues. She does, however, continue to train with the U of T swimmers and MacDonald, with her sights set on the 2004 Athens summer Olympics.
Former teammate and alumnus Jen Button also raced in New York this past weekend, taking home a silver medal in her 200 m butterfly event. “It was a great effort to win the [World Cup] medal,” says MacDonald, of Button’s second-place finish. Even though she clocked her fastest swim of the season, MacDonald feels “it could have been better as she [Button] was very ill the week preceding the meet.” Button also made the finals in the 50 m and 100 m butterfly, as well as swimming a personal best in the 100 m freestyle.
Tagging along with Warden and Button was Blues rookie Jennifer Porenta. Attending the international event exposed the young swimmer to some of the best athletes in the world. “We have to get used to that level of competition,” says MacDonald, seeing as “these are the women that she will be racing for top hounours in the near future.” Porenta just missed qualifying for the finals at the World Cup in her two freestyle swims-the 100 m and 200 m.
While these three women hobnobbed with the best south of the border, the rest of the Blues swim team blew the competition out of the water last weekend at a nearby meet at the University of Waterloo. The Blues continued to dominate their provincial competition in this, their last tune-up competition before the Feb. 13-15 Ontario University Association (OUA) Championships. U of T racked up 16 different event winners at Waterloo, securing both the men’s and women’s teams a comfortable lead in the provincial point standings going into the championships. Stand-out performances came from double event winners Sarah Bruce (50 free & 200 free), Tony Costa (50 back & 200 back), and Jess Sudbury (100 free & 50 butterfly). The Blues also won all four relays.
“The women will be favoured to repeat as OUA Champions in two weeks,” says assistant coach Linda Keifer, “while the men, [who] may have a slight edge on the other teams, will have to be able to put everything together and swim very well to steal the championship back from McMaster University.”
Currently, 13 women and six men from the Blues swim team have already qualified for the national championships (CIS), which U of T is hosting March 5-7.
