MELBOURNE, Australia, January 10. CANADA'S national junior and youth team exploded for 20 medals on Monday to open the Victoria Age Group Swimming Championships being held at the 10-lane pool for this March\u2019s Commonwealth Games. The Canadians reached 23 finals and marched to the podium to collect 13 gold, five silver and two bronze medals.<\/p>\n
Canada posted 1-2 finishes in the junior men\u2019s 100 backstroke with, respectively, Jake Tapp of Langley, B.C., and Pascal Wollach of Calgary; the men\u2019s 16-year-old 400 freestyle with Jonathan Blouin of Quebec City and Greg Gerum of Hamilton; the junior men\u2019s 400 individual medley with Jordan Hartney of Richmond, B.C., and Bruno Langlois of Quebec City and the women\u2019s junior 400 freestyle with Sarah Mayzes of Victoria and Kayla Rawlings of Langley.<\/p>\n
Other Canadian winners for the women were: Zsofia Balasz of Toronto in the 15-year-old 200 butterfly and 800 freestyle; Jessika Craig of Belleville, Ont., in the 16-year-old 100 backstroke; Gabrielle Soucisse of Beaconsfield, Que., in the 15-year-old 200 IM and Chelsey Salli of Langley in 14-year-old 200 breaststroke.<\/p>\n
Other winners for the men were Ray Betuzzi of Calgary in the junior 400 freestyle and Curtis Lutsch of Calgary in the junior 200 IM.<\/p>\n
"My goal was to keep it loose in the fly and concentrate on keeping my optimal stroke in the backstroke," said Lutsch. "Overall I was pleased with the final outcome and how I was able to carry out my race tactics."<\/p>\n
Canada also won gold in both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s 200 freestyle relay. The women\u2019s team members were Emily Wong of Ottawa, Laura Murray of St. John\u2019s, Nfld., Rawlings and Stephanie Horner of Beaconsfield, Que. The men\u2019s team members were Tapp, Gerum, Betuzzi and Joel Greenshields of Calgary.<\/p>\n
In the women\u2019s 400 freestyle for 16-year-olds, Horner and Melanie Dodds of Langley were second and third. Canada\u2019s other bronze medallist was Natalie Hagen in the 15-year-old 800 freestyle.<\/p>\n
Other women finalists were: Katie Kotlowski of Langley and Anne Schmuck of Victoria, fifth and eighth, respectively, in the junior 100 backstroke and Karah Stanworth-Belleville of Beaconsfield, fourth in the 15-year-old 200 IM. Other men finalists were: Lutsch in fifth in the 200 butterfly and Gerum fifth in the 16-year-old 100 backstroke.<\/p>\n
Gerum also clocked two personal bests while Rawlings, Soucisse, Salli, Lutsch, Dodds, Schmuck and Stanworth-Belleville also posted best-ever times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MELBOURNE, Australia, January 10. CANADA'S national junior and youth team exploded for 20 medals on Monday to open the Victoria Age Group Swimming Championships being held at the 10-lane pool<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n