Tatum O’Connor made school history at the U Sports Swimming Championships.
The second-year swimmer became the first Badger to win a medal at the national swimming championships since 2002 when she won a pair of bronze medals during the meet, hosted by the University of Toronto from March 6 to 8.
On day one of the competition, the Kinesiology major captured third place in the final of the women’s 50-metre backstroke, where she broke her own school record that she set earlier this season at the Dean Boles Invitational. She finished with a time of 27.65 seconds, besting her previous record of 28 seconds, and was joined on the podium by a pair of UBC Thunderbirds’ swimmers — Eloise Allen (27.45) and Bridget Burton (27.50) — who finished first and second in the race respectively.
O’Connor wasn’t done there, reaching the podium on day two in the women’s 100-metre backstroke. The Dundas, Ontario native added her second bronze medal in as many days, reaching the finish with a time of 1:00.31, fractions of a second behind Calgary Dinos’ swimmer Hannah Johnsen, who captured silver at 1:00.26. Burton won gold with a time of 59.30 seconds.
O’Connor nearly added her second medal of the day and third of the weekend when she finished in fourth place in the 50-metre butterfly. She recorded a time of 27.40 seconds, which was just behind UBC’s Una Borchgrevink, who placed third at 27 seconds flat. The Thunderbirds swept the podium with Kayla Noelle Sanchez winning gold while setting a new U Sports record, finishing the race in 25.85 seconds.
O’Connor’s dominance in the pool helped give the Badgers women’s swim team 170 team points, which ranked 13th of 20 teams in the competition. On the men’s side, the Badgers totalled 28.5 points.
Amongst the other standout Brock performances at the U Sports Championships was Grace Chai, who competed in three ‘B’ finals in her nationals debut.
Chai’s best result came in the 100-metre freestyle where she finished with a time of 56.47, ranking third in the ‘B’ final and 11th overall in the event. The first-year swimmer also competed in the 50-metre freestyle, where she finished 12th overall (26.04 seconds) and ranked 14th overall in the 200-metre individual medley with a time of 2:21.26.
Fellow rookie swimmer Camren Courchene-Carter also made a splash in his U Sports debut, placing third in the 50m breaststroke ‘B’ final (11th overall) with a time of 28.06 seconds. The St. Catharines native also competed in the ‘B’ final of the 100-metre breaststroke where he finished 14th overall at 1:01.60.
Rounding out the Brock talent that qualified for the national championships were Jared Banta, Adriana Martone and Quinn Mersereau.
Both the UBC Thunderbirds men’s and women’s teams won their respective divisions, with the men’s side tallying 1,305.5 points and the women’s side totalling 1,472 points in their victories. The host Varsity Blues placed second in the men’s standings with 1,078 points while the Calgary Dinos finished third at 860 points. The Dinos also placed third in the women’s standings with 920.5 points, just behind the McGill Martlets who finished in second with 936.5 points.
For the complete results from the U Sports Swimming Championships, visit gobadgers.ca.