It’s not quite Michael Phelps territory, but the SFU Clan men’s swimming team turned in quite a performance at the Western Canadian Championships last week. The team earned eight medals at the Winnipeg-staged event, even setting a couple new school records along the way.
Julian Monks led the way for the Clan, earning gold and bronze medals in solo events. The sophomore, who has had an up-and-down career with the Clan, finished atop the podium in the 50-metre breaststroke while his bronze came in the 100-metre breaststroke. While Monks was the only swimmer to capture a gold, he was arguably upstaged by teammate Dmitar Ivanov, who finished with a pair of silver medals in the 100-metre and 200-metre backstroke events.
Ivanov finished with times of 56.10 and 2:00.19 in the 100-metre and 200-metre events respectively, which put his name at the top of SFU record books for each event.
And while Ivanov was busy rewriting the record books, Hans Heyer was on his way to becoming the third swimmer for the Clan to bring home two medals in solo races. He finished just behind Ivanov in the 100-metre backstoke to earn a bronze, and captured a silver medal with an impressive showing in the 50-metre event.
Monks and Ivanov would later earn another silver medal, this time as part of a four-man team in the 400-metre medley relay. Along with Greg Laughlin and Adam Kautz, the four earned SFU’s seventh medal of the tournament.
To round out the medal haul were Kautz, Laughlin, Kevin Nickerson and Ben Berg, who together earned a bronze in the 400-metre freestyle relay.
And while it was the men’s side that earned all of the Clan’s hardware over the Championships, the women’s side didn’t race poorly. A member of the Clan reached the finals in eight separate events while both the medley and freestyle relay teams did the same. Unfortunately, the women didn’t win any medals, but that doesn’t take away from the Clan’s impressive outing.
