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Stingrays pack championship punch

Rest might not always be essential. Foothills picked up seven podium finishes and six age group club records in a sterling showing at the Alberta Summer Championships, June 29 to July 1 at Calgary’s Repsol Sports Centre.
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Foothills Stingray Finlay Knox collects one of his two gold medals at the Alberta Summer Championships at Calgary’s Repsol Sports Centre.

Rest might not always be essential.

Foothills picked up seven podium finishes and six age group club records in a sterling showing at the Alberta Summer Championships, June 29 to July 1 at Calgary’s Repsol Sports Centre.

“I was super impressed with that meet because we weren’t rested or shaved or anything,” said Stingrays head coach Todd Melton. “It went from being a very important meet for us to not. We’re now at the next level where we’re resting for more important meets.

“The kids were swimming tired and I was extremely impressed with how well they did considering.”

Finlay Knox took home the youth recognition award as the top performer in his age group in the country while collecting medals of every colour.

Knox took gold in the 50m butterfly, 200m backstroke, silver in 100m backstroke and bronze in 200m freestyle while taking off seven seconds from his previous best.

The Foothills Composite student polished off five club records in the 17 and under boys category (50m and 200m freestyle, 50m butterfly, 100m and 200m backstroke).

Knox’s performances in both the 100m and 200m backstroke earned him new qualifying times for both the Canadian Swimming Trials and Canadian Swimming Championships.

“His 200 back was probably the best race that I saw and the reason for that is he beat the national champion,” Melton said. “That was pretty impressive especially for Fin in backstroke, because that’s probably his weakest stroke.”

Lisoway, the recent Edison School graduate, touched the wall first in the 200m IM to pick up the other gold medal for Foothills and added six top-four finishes.

The 17-year-old also set a new club record in the 50m backstroke.

Summer Fedor rounded out the podium push with a pair of silver in both the 50m backstroke and 50m butterfly.

“Summer has some great sprinting ability,” Melton said. “Summer is always impressive at that level, she kind of comes out of her shell. She stepped it up in those races.”

Megan Deering, who earned the youth recognition award as top-10 in her age group, and Alycia Weber added top-Weight finishes while Emilia Hesterman and Kennedy Loewen swam to top 16 results.

Foothills sent 12 athletes to the summer championships.

Strathmore’s Jessica Mantik, who trains in part with the Stingrays, took home a bronze in the 50m butterfly.

Next up for the club is the Canadian Swimming Trials in Edmonton featuring both Lisoway and Knox and Alberta Summer Games in Grande Prairie, both held during the third weekend of July. They are off to Arizona for an outdoor national meet the following week.

The club also announced it will be re-branding starting in September as the Okotoks Mavericks Swim Club. The move is being done in part to differentiate the Stingrays from the Okotoks Stingrays Summer Swim Club while also putting more of an emphasis on Okotoks than Foothills.

For more information go to foothillsstingrays.com


Remy Greer

About the Author: Remy Greer

Remy Greer is the assistant editor and sports reporter for westernwheel.ca and the Western Wheel newspaper. For story tips contact [email protected]
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