Birpal Sraw made the most of a trip to the B.C. ‘AA’ long course (50-metre) swim championships in Kamloops.
The 12-year-old Langford swimmer and Island Swimming athlete not only cracked the ‘AAA’ time barrier with his performances in breaststroke events, he won a gold medal in the age 12-13 boys 200-metre final and a silver in the 100.
He swam nearly five seconds faster in the 200 final than in the preliminaries, winning in a time of 3:00.87 and beating the runner-up by more than two seconds. In the 100 final, Sraw was less than a half-second behind the winner, clocking 1:24.33.
He added fourth-place finishes in the B finals of both the 200m individual medley and 200 freestyle.
His sister Shania Sraw, 14, was part of the club’s gold medal-winning foursome in the 14-under girls 4 x 50m freestyle relay. She shared the win with clubmates Shannon McMillan, Tayah Giesbrecht and Alex Greenfield, whose combined time was one minute, 59.43 seconds, a narrow .92 seconds faster than the second-place finishers.
With Ella Lane-Sangha replacing Greenfield, the team took fourth in the 4 x 50m medley relay. Sraw added a fifth in the 14-over girls 50-metre freestyle B final.
Island Swimming had 23 athletes competing at the competition, held June 24 to 26. This week the club is hosting the AAA provincials at Saanich Commonwealth Place. The championships got underway Wednesday and wind up Sunday.
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