The Carleton varsity swim team participated in back-to-back meets at the University of Ottawa and Queen’s University Jan. 22-23.
The Ravens’ 6 a.m. practices and increased dedication appear to have been worth it as the team broke personal and school-wide records.
After two full days of competing, head coach Dale Coleman could only speak highly of her teams’ accomplishments.
“It was a great tune-up as we head into the OUA [Ontario University Athletics’] championships.”
Coleman said the team had a number of lifetime best times.
Karli McKinnon's time in the women's 200-metre freestyle — 2:11.8 — was the fastest 200-metre freestyle ever swam by a Carleton female. Kaitlin Swales also had a strong weekend, winning the women's 100-metre breaststroke Jan. 23 at Queen’s.
With the OUAs coming up in a few weeks, Coleman said she knows her team is in the final stretch.
“I am personally extremely excited as we head into the final days of training before the 2010 OUA swimming championships. The team has already improved greatly over the season in terms of seeing the results of their hard training pay off. As members of the swim team, they train eight times per week and it’s in the next 10 days that our improvement will come from executing the finer details well in practice, such as starts, turns and race pace-work.”
Being a smaller team, competition will be tough, but Coleman remains confident in her squad.
“We are a bit of an underdog, going up against schools bringing full, 36-member teams. However, the Carleton team has done a great amount of work this year and has already seen some lifetime best performances. I am very excited to see them race and to see their hard work come to fruition.”
The Raven swimmers will compete in the OUA championships Feb. 5-7 at Brock University.