Eden Kormandy and Birpal Sraw continue to carry the Langford torch high for Island Swimming.
The West Shore swimmers won multiple medals for the club at the 2017 Swim B.C. Short Course AA Championships recently in Chilliwack and swam fast enough to qualify for this week’s AAA short course championships at Saanich Commonwealth Place pool.
Kormandy, 16, earned swimmer of the meet honours having collected the most points and six gold and one silver medal in the 14-over age category. Her outstanding weekend helped the Island Swimming girls team finish first overall by a large margin.
Perhaps most impressive was the way she shaved significant seconds off her previous best times in all of her events to qualify for AAAs in each. Those included a drop of 29 seconds in the 800-metre freestyle, 21 seconds off in the 400m individual medley and 17 seconds in the 400m freestyle.
She won gold in the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle, the 200m and 400m IM and the 200m backstroke. Her silver medal came in the 200m breaststroke.
“After more than a year of no best times, and training challenges, Eden is the perfect example of never giving up and that when you believe and commit to your program you can always get back on track,” said Island Swimming coach Annie Wolfe. “She is, and with her incredible performance she qualified to compete in the AAA B.C. Championships.”
Sraw, 13, knocked eight seconds off his best time in the boys age 13-14 200m breaststroke to win gold at the AA meet, added a bronze in the 100m breast, and dropped 12 seconds off his best 400m free time to qualify in all three of those events for the AAA provincials.
He also finished fourth in the 200m IM with a nine-second improvement, and made finals in the 200m free.
Helped by the efforts of Kormandy and Sraw, Island Swimming finished second overall in the team competition behind the Hyack Club from New Westminster.
The AAA provincials run Thursday (March 2) through Sunday.
editor@goldstream gazette.com