Toronto men first, women second after Day One of the 2016 Speedo CIS Championships

QUEBEC CITY (CIS) - The most successful teams in CIS history held up their reputations on day 1 of the 2016 Speedo CIS Championships, which took place Friday at Laval University. The University of Toronto Varsity Blues took the lead in the men's standings, but were outpaced by the UBC Thunderbirds on the ladies' side.​

WEBSITE (including complete results): http://english.cis-sic.ca/championships/swim/index 

The four-time champion UBC women's swimmers started off strong with a 245-point yield, 18 ahead of Toronto (227). Whereas, the University of Calgary grasped third place with 160 points.

UBC's Head Coach, Steve Price was proud of his women's team. "They did a pretty good job tonight. We are pleased to be in the lead after the first day. The girls battled hard, they moved up, and to be ahead a very good team in the University of Toronto, we'll take that. About the meet in general, it was a pretty exciting night for CIS swimming."
 
On the men's side, it was the Varsity Blues that picked up the most points with 276. The Calgary Dinos followed with 247 points, just ahead of the Thunderbirds who collected 242 points.

"We came to this competition thinking we had a chance, even though we were coming in ranked number one," declared the head coach of the University of Toronto, Byron MacDonald. "Our goal was to start out the meet really well on day one and get some momentum. We are going to need a big lead if we are going to win this thing. We swam incredibly well tonight. If we can build that lead a little bit bigger, we might be able to hang on."

On the individual level, Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson from UBC stole the show, winning two gold medals in the 200m freestyle and the 400m IM, on top of helping her team win the silver in the 4x100m relay

"I wouldn't say it's above my expectations, because I always shoot to be the best that I can be and I knew I had the potential to have gold medals in both of those races," expressed the triple-medalist after her day. "It was exactly what I wanted to do and I'm happy it happened. We had some really good races tonight. That's where we wanted to be."

Several records fell on the first day of the National Championships. Kylie Masse, from the University of Toronto, first began her day by breaking the mark of the 50m backstroke short-course, before doing the same on the long-course final, beating the former record-holder and two-time champion on this distance, Marie-Pier Couillard of Laval University, with a time of 27.84.

On the men's side, no 4 x 100m freestyle relay has ever been faster in the history of the CIS Championships than the Varsity Blues were on Friday night (3:23.94), who already detained the previous record. 

Toronto's Eli Wall also broke his own mark at the 100m breaststroke by one hundredth of a second with a time of 1:02.43. Keegan Zanatta of UBC also set a new standard in the 200m free, which he completed in 1:50.28. Finally, Calgary's Josh Dow established a new national record with a time of 25.98 in the 50m backstroke.

Other highlights included Kylie Masse's second gold medal of the day with her teammates of the U of T in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay. An unusual event also occurred when two swimmers were crowned in the women's 100m butterfly. UBC's Jacomie Strydome and Montreal's Sophie Marois both touched the pad with an identical time of 1:01.14.

Member of the 2012 London Canadian Olympic team, Tera van Beilen of the UBC T-Birds completely dominated the 100m breaststroke, beating her closest rival by nearly two seconds. Josiah Binnema provided Alberta's lone gold medal of the day in the 100m butterfly, while Osvald Nitski (Toronto) claimed the 400m IM

The 2016 Speedo CIS Championships continues Saturday with the preliminaries beginning at 10 a.m. (EST), while the finals will be presented at 6 p.m.

NOTES: Finals are webcast live on www.CIS-SIC.tv... Live results from preliminaries and finals are available on the championships website (click HERE)... Since 2015, finals at the Speedo CIS championships are contested in a 50-metre pool (long course), while preliminaries remain short course races (25m pool)... Records set in the preliminaries are added to the Speedo CIS championship short-course record book.  

DAY 1 TEAM STANDINGS

Women

1. UBC, 245 points
2. Toronto, 227
3. Calgary, 160
4. Laval, 141
5. Western, 124
6. Dalhousie, 113
7. McGill, 91
8. Montreal, 78
9. Alberta, 68
10. Guelph, 56
11. Ottawa, 53
12. McMaster 46
13. Victoria, 45
14. Sherbrooke, 38
15. Regina, 34
16. UNB, 21
17. UQAM, 18
18. Laurentian, 16
19. Lethbridge, 13
20. Wilfrid Laurier, 7
21. Brock, 5
22. Waterloo, 3
23. Acadia, 2

Men (Nelson C. Hart trophy)

1. Toronto, 276 points
2. Calgary, 247
3. UBC, 242
4. Alberta, 136
5. Western, 106
6. Laval, 73
6. Dalhousie, 73
8. McMaster, 63
9. Guelph, 62
10. Ottawa, 49
11. McGill, 46
11. Victoria, 46
13. Sherbrooke, 36
14. Lethbridge, 32
15. Regina, 30
16. Montreal, 21
16. Manitoba, 21
18. Waterloo, 15
19. Queen's 11
20. Laurentian 4

DAY 1 INDIVIDUAL MEDALLISTS (Thursday)

Women 200m Free
1. Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson, UBC, 2:00.90
2. Maia Brundage, UBC, 2:02.50
3. Paige Schultz, Toronto, 2:02.57

Men 200m Free
1. Keegan Zanatta, UBC, 1:50.28 *
2. Evan Van Moerkerke, Guelph, 1:51.14
3. Oliver Straszynski, Toronto, 1:51.68

W 50m Back
1. Kylie Masse, Toronto, 27.84 * (see note below)
2. Marie-Pier Couillard, Laval, 28.93
3. Phoebe Lenderyou, Dalhousie, 29.17

Note: Kylie Masse also set a CIS championship short-course record (26.72) in the preliminaries.

M 50m Back
1. Josh Dow, Calgary, 25.98 *
2. Daniel Kuiack, Toronto, 26.11
3. Christopher Courtis, Calgary, 26.21

W 100m Breast
1. Tera Van Beilen, UBC, 1:08.36
2. Erin Stamp, UBC, 1:10.09
3. Alexandra Naisby, Sherbrooke, 1:10.18

M 100m Breast
1. Eli Wall, Toronto, 1:02.43 *
2. Dillon Perron, Manitoba, 1:03.35
3. Jonathan Naisby, Sherbrooke, 1:03.37

W 100m Fly
1. Jacomie Strydom, UBC, 1:01.14
1. Sophie Marois, Montreal, 1:01.14
3. Marie-Lou Lapointe, Montréal, 1:01.42

M 100m Fly
1. Josiah Binnema, Alberta, 54.09
2. Gamal Assaad, Western, 54.41
3. Matthew Dans, Toronto, 54.70

W 400m IM
1. Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson, UBC, 4:45.21
2. Genevieve Cantin, Laval, 4:53.96
3. Tianna Rissling, Calgary, 4:55.07
 
M 400m IM
1. Osvald Nitski, Toronto, 4:23.90
2. Tristan Cote, Calgary, 4:24.78
3. Colin Eriks, UBC, 4:25.30

W 4 x 100m Free Relay
1. Toronto, 3:47.36
(Victoria Radounski, Heather Lam, Kylie Masse, Paige Schultz)
2. UBC, 3:48.41
(Rebecca Terejko, Tera Van Beilen, Maia Brundage, Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson)
3. Laval, 3:52.09
(Marie-Pier Couillard, Mila Arnautovich, Magalie Poudrier, Genevieve Cantin)

M 4 x 100m Free Relay
1. Toronto, 3:23.94 *
(Daniel Kuiack, Cameron Kidd, Oliver Straszynski, Mitchel Ferraro)
2. UBC, 3:24.18
(Keegan Zanatta, Justin G Chan, Carson Olafson, Marshal Parker)
3. Guelph, 3:27.63
(Eric Trevisan, Evan Van Moerkerke, John Carroll, Philip Vranic)

* CIS Championships long-course record