The first night of finals at the AA provincial swimming championships from June 20-22 in Victoria featured half of the Williams Lake team competing for top spots. Although three swims were a 10th of a second or less away from making a final, the group rallied around their other finals.
David Russell had a busy day with three solid swims in the morning and three finals in the afternoon. David finished up 16th in the 100 back, 15th in the 200 IM and eighth in the 50 free.
Danika Robson swam to a second swim in the 100 back finishing up 15th over all and just missing the 50 free by a 10th of a second.
Leif Brandson had a great 200 IM making it into finals and narrowly missing another final by less than a 10th of a second.
Leif bettered his morning performance and captured the silver medal in the 200 IM.
Gracie Frost missed her 50 free by a 10th of a second adding to the near misses of the day for the team, but buckled down in her 100 back to win the event and qualify for AAA championships with her second AAA time.
Gracie was neck and neck with her competition into the turn where she nailed a fast turn and took off on the rest for the field. It was a battle until the end but with a good finish Gracie took the gold medal.
The second day was a bit light in the number of finals but that didn’t stop Gracie and Danika from improving significantly.
Gracie captured a bronze in the 100 butterfly beating her best time by more than seven seconds and gaining another AAA time, while Danika finished with a fifth in the 400 free.
The third night was a big finish for the Blue Fins as Leif managed three finals, Gracie two, and Danika and Keanna Saunders had one final apiece.
Danika swam to a seventh-place finish in the 200 free to finish off her weekend and a solid year.
Liam McCreight swam some tough swims, and while he was feeling under the weather he managed a great swim in his last event in the 200 back bettering his time by more than three seconds.
Keanna took another second off from her five-second improvement in the morning and finished in seventh spot in the 100 breast stroke.
Gracie took off with an early lead in the 200 free and just got out touched for fourth as she narrowly missed another AAA time. She wasn’t done there for the night as she crushed her best time in 200 back by 12 seconds and took another gold to wrap up her impressive weekend.
Liam and David also finished with some solid swims and Liam, despite being sick, posted a great swim and best time in his back stroke to move up 10 places in his rankings.
Leif had another solid swim in the 200 free, not quite swimming to his morning’s best time but finishing the race with a fifth.
In the 200 back Leif swam his way to his first AAA time in the morning and finished with another best time taking over six seconds off all together.
In his last swim and last chance for AAAs Leif swam his sixth race of the day as he finished with a 400 individual medley with a gold-medal performance and a 27-second improvement qualifying him as the sixth Blue Fin for AAA provincials. Leif also broke a 10-year-old club record in the 400 IM.