Carleton swimmer Moustafa Kamel won first place in the men’s 200m freestyle at the 2017 DeBray Divisional Championships in November, making him the first gold medalist Carleton’s swim team has seen since 2005.
Kamel said he could see he was in first place while swimming, but kept expecting competitors to pass him.
“I don’t know, for some reason I came first,” he said. “My teammates were right there. They were calling my name and shouting.”
The second-year engineering student was expected to place eighth in the competition.
“He had a huge personal best and swam the race really well,” head coach Brian Hill said.
Kamel swam 1:55:18, which Hill said beat his previous time by almost four seconds.
Kamel, who moved to Ottawa from Egypt two years ago, said he’s been swimming since he was young, but didn’t decide to pursue it competitively until encouragement from one of his coaches. He said he usually trains in the pool nine times a week, but also does some outside training in the gym.
Hill said that team practices are more structured this year, as they’ve added strength and conditioning programs, which are being overseen by the high-performance trainer at Carleton.
“It’s definitely a huge improvement and a great addition to the program,” Hill said. “We had a really, really high rate of personal bests at the divisional, so I expect that to continue.”
Kamel said he also thinks the team has a good chance at the Ontario University Athletic (OUA) swim championships in February.
“Compared to last year, we’re really good and everyone’s working really hard,” he said.
Kamel said he hopes to perform well in the competition and receive scholarships, as swimmers at Carleton have to pay to be on the swim team, but don’t receive scholarships from the university.
Hill said that there’s not as much funding for students on the swim team, as there are for other sports. He said this is due to other varsity sports being more popular than swimming, and therefore having the potential to earn more money.
“We work so hard and it’s very competitive . . . we don’t get that much funding or recognition from the university,” Hill said. “At the end of the day, Carleton has 20,000 plus students and not all of them play football, basketball or hockey, so we need to create opportunities for athletes who participate in sports.”
Hill also stressed that he’s grateful for the funding the team does receive from the university.
“ In the last two years, a lot of the success we have couldn’t come without the support that we have received from the university,” he said.
But, Hill said that more funding would help as the team continues to grow. He said in the two years he’s been at Carleton, the team has gone from eight to 40 athletes.
“Money isn’t the bottom line when it comes to the students’ quality of life and it when comes to athletic performance,” he said. “I, as the coach of the varsity swim team, would certainly like to see more funding come our way.”
