BARRHEAD - It was a great way to end the season.
The Barrhead Swim Club is a competitive club boasting 35 members ranging from seven to 17 years old. It is the club's sixth season since rebooting following the construction of the new aquatics centre.
On the weekend of April 6 and 7, the Barrhead Swim Club participated in their last swim meet of the season, hosted by the Edson Candy Crush Swim Club.
Head coach Kylee Meunier said that club members recorded 97 personal best times.
"Twenty-nine of those were in first-time swims," she said.
Meunier said Barrhead swimmers took 919.74 seconds or 15.33 minutes off their personal best times and recorded 102 Top 10 finishes, including 69 in the Top 5.
Several of Barrhead's swimmers also had podium finishes, including Korie Blum in a girls eight-years-old and under event, Sarina Strydhorst, earning bronze in an 11-12 years-old girls swim, Eilyn-Rose Demskie taking bronze in a 13-14 years-old swim and Colby Chase taking home a silver medal in a boys 15 years old and over swim.
Meunier added that several of the club's swimmers also qualified to swim in the "Ocanator" — a series of 25-metre freestyle heats to determine the meet's quickest swimmer. Ocanator participants included Carson and Korie Blum, Aria Ellwein, Eilyn-Rose and Kyler Demskie, Robert Williams, William Thomsen and Chase.
Meunier said the two swim meets in Edson were two events she and the other coaching staff targeted at the beginning of the season. The first swim meet in Edson was in November.
"It is one of the most fun, enjoyable meets to attend," she said. "The swim meet organizers just do an amazing job. Both meets are so good."
The quality of the event is one reason the swim club brought such a large contingent to the meet, with 26 competing on the first day and 22 the next.
It is also one of the two overnight events of the season, which is quite a novelty for many of the swimmers, Meunier said.
As for the event itself, Meunier said the pool in the Edson and District Leisure Centre is one of the smaller ones the club has competed in this season.
"It is five lanes, and there is not much of a viewing area for parents, and there is not a lot of room for swimmers on the pool deck," she said. "It is quite cosy. We had our own space on the deck, but we were all kind of on top of each other, but that is one of the things that makes it fun."
Although the swim club has had barely enough time to dry everything out, Meunier said, plans are already on the way for next season, which they hope to kick off about a month earlier, in mid-September.
"A lot of it will depend on when we can get back into the pool," she said, adding the Barrhead Regional Aquatics Centre typically closes in early September for two weeks of maintenance.
Town of Barrhead Mayor Dave McKenzie, at a March council meeting, stated that the Barrhead Agricultural Society is working with the parks and recreation department in hopes of timing the annual two-week maintenance period so it is completed before the Wildrose Rodeo Association Challenge (finals) event that makes its return to the community after a year's hiatus held at the Agrena on Sept. 19 to 22.
