On the second day of this weekend’s OUA championships the swimmers came to the pool early to prepare for the 10 am preliminaries, while the rest of U of T’s students hoped for a snow day. Friday’s events included the 200-metre IMs, 100-metre freestyle, 200-metre backstroke, 100-metre breaststroke, 50-metre butterfly, the women’s 800-metre freestyle, the men’s 1500-metre freestyle, and the 400-metre medley relay. By the end of the day, six more OUA records were broken; two of them by U of T.
The day began with the preliminaries for the 200-metre IMs. U of T’s Vanessa Treasure won the silver medal with teammate Margot Cunningham taking bronze. Zach Summerhayes placed second in both the preliminaries and the finals, where he finished just 0.56 seconds behind the gold medallist. From the preliminaries, Jeremie Holdom moved up in the standings, just missing a medal, placing fourth with 0.49 seconds behind the bronze medallist.
The women’s 100-metre freestyle preliminaries were dominated by McMaster, Western, and U of T, with the host team’s Andrea Jurenovskis finishing in second place, and managed to keep this spot in the finals, earning the silver medal. The U of T men took seven of the top 13 positions in the event, with Edward Liu leading the Blues into the finals, finishing second, behind Evan Van Moerkerke of Guelph. In the finals, Smerek took the bronze medal, with U of T’s Liu, Taylor Bond, and Luke Happ finishing in fourth, sixth, and seventh.
U of T’s women placed fourth, fifth, thirteenth and fourteenth in the 200-metre backstroke with two competitors finishing in each tier of the finals. In the finals, Cunningham managed to squeeze into third place, earning U of T another medal, and the only women’s medal in the event. In the men’s competition, U of T’s Matthew Myers placed first nearly two full seconds ahead of McMaster’s Ben Stubbs to claim his second gold medal of the weekend.
In the women’s next event — the 100-metre breaststroke — U of T’s Treasure, who has been one of U of T’s strongest swimmers and had dominated the event in past OUA and CIS championships, led after the preliminaries but slipped 0.69 seconds behind McMaster’s Alexandra Vanommen to claim silver. U of T’s men struggled in the competition with David Riley and Peter Kruzyk finishing sixth and seventh.
In the 50-metre butterfly, the U of T men dominated in the preliminaries, to give fans hope of winning multiple medals in the final. They were not disappointed as Mike Smerek placed first, Edward Liu second, and Brian Lee third. Smerek’s performance broke the OUA record for the event set in 2004 by 0.97 seconds. This was his fifth-consecutive win in the event, earning him the OUA Major Grand Slam award.
In the women’s 800-metre freestyle, U of T’s younger swimmers took two of the three top spots, with the second year Bridget Coley placing first ahead of Blues’ first year student Esther Haines who placed third. In the women’s 400-metre medley relay, U of T’s team was predicted to win, but fell just short, placing second behind Western’s team. The men’s team won their race ahead of McMaster by 0.03 seconds, also breaking the OUA record for this event. By the end of the day, U of T’s women were trailing Western 620.5 to 503, but still strongly ahead of McMaster, in third, with 455.5 points. Meanwhile, the men finished strongly in first place with 585 points, above McMaster in second with 475, and Western trailing them with 430 points.
