60th annual Mel Zajac Jr. International Swim Meet closes with fine night of swimming

VANCOUVER – The contingent of T-Birds at the Mel Zajac Jr. International Swim Meet continued to bring home medals on the third and final day of the event, as a number of athletes got their shine in both individual and team races.

There may not have been a record broken like on Day Two, but Thunderbirds head coach Derrick Schoof was more than pleased with Sunday's festivities both in and out of the water.

"I'm really happy with how the meet went," said Schoof. "It was such a nice opportunity for us to really recognize Mel Zajac Sr. and all the work that he's done for the swimming community. It was a special night at the pool tonight and I'm really happy with how things turned out."



Zajac himself was at the meet and helped hand out some of the awards for the race medallists, the ranks of which featured well over a dozen UBC athletes. That included golds in both the Women's and Men's 100m Backstroke events, with Bridget Burton winning the former and Blake Tierney finishing just 0.18 seconds short of the meet record with a time of 54.60 in the latter.
 

Justice Migneault also won his second gold of the weekend, coming out on top in an extremely tight Men's 50m Breaststroke race where he touched the wall with a time of 28.60, just 0.16 seconds ahead of the next-best swimmer. Emma O'Croinin found herself on the opposite end of an equally tight finish, earning silver in the Women's 100m Freestyle in a race separated by just 0.15 seconds at the top.

Perhaps where the T-Birds shone the brightest was in the 4x100m Medley relays, especially on the Men's side. Two squads of UBC male swimmers entered the "A" final, and they took the top two positions. The team of Migneault, Canek Bracho Maganda, Jake Gaunt and Kai Lilienthal surged out in front early and never looked back, finishing about five seconds ahead of the team of Joran Drogo, Tanner Cole, Frank Ho and Joel Blanco.

On the Women's side, the team of Natascha Borromeo, Eloise Allen, Una Borchgrevink and Jade Lo took silver in their relay, and Allen also earned an individual silver in the Women's 50m Backstroke to make it five medals for her on the weekend.



The other T-Bird medal winners included Finlay Knox and Yuri Kisil, who finished 2nd and 3rd in the Men's 100m Freestyle. That final was dominated by UBC swimmers, with Gaunt and Blanco also finishing in the top five. And while he didn't earn a medal, Olivier Risk certainly showed well in the grueling Men's 1500m Freestyle, pushing himself to fourth-place with a time of 16:18.46.

With the weekend done, many of the Thunderbird swimmers will now be looking ahead to the upcoming Canadian Swimming Trials in June, with the goal of being selected to represent Team Canada at the 2025 World Championships.

"This was a great meet to prepare our athletes for the Trials," said Schoof. "They had to get up time and time again and put on some top-level performances. I was excited to see so many swimmers that were basically matching right around their lifetime-best times, so they're really set up to go faster at Trials with a proper taper."

"We're looking forward to see how many of our athletes here at UBC can not only make the team but also final at Trials, and move themselves forward towards international swimming."

The Canadian Swimming Trials take place from June 7th to 12th in Victoria.