Dalhousie Sprint Meet Recap — Issue 8

This past weekend, our Highlanders opened their competitive season at the short and fast Dal Sprint Meet, hosted by the Dalhousie University varsity swim team. With the majority of our team away Being More on different King’s-Edgehill School camps and trips, three boys represented KES at this season opener.

Junior School representative and rookie Jude Levangie ’32 got off to a fantastic start. Jude raced in five events: the 100m individual medley, 50m butterfly, 50m backstroke, 50m breaststroke, and 50m freestyle. It’s always a successful swim meet when an athlete earns even one personal best, but Jude managed to swim faster than ever before in four of his five races.

Rowan Francis ’27 competed in the 50m butterfly and 50m freestyle events, finishing in the top 30 of more than 130 competitors in each. Better yet, Rowan achieved significant personal bests in both races, taking nearly a second off each 50m effort. The strongest part of both his swims was his lightning-fast underwater dolphin kicks, where he gained valuable metres on his competition and clearly had among the top three fastest kicks in the entire meet.

Middle-distance swimmer Harvey Hadley ’27 prefers events that last two or four minutes, so these under-30-second sprints are a bit out of his element. Still, Harvey managed to place in the top 10 for four of his five events and finished just off the podium in his 50m backstroke, placing fourth.

Next up, four of our ten and eleven year old Highlanders will compete this weekend at Université Sainte-Anne. After that, the team will shift from sprinting to longer distances for a distance-themed meet in Greenwood on November 1, featuring our AA and AAA qualified swimmers.