Local swimming fans are in for a treat on Halloween as the UBC Thunderbirds men’s team hosts the University of Toronto Varsity Blues in a dual meet at the UBC Aquatic Centre in Vancouver.
Dubbed “Ghoul in the Pool,” the meet features the top two teams from last year’s Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) championship, where Toronto defeated UBC by a score of 539-524.
“We are excited to have the Toronto men come out west to UBC to duel our T-Birds men’s team,” said UBC head coach Steve Price. “They are the defending CIS champs and it’s a golden opportunity to see how our two teams stack up against each other this early in the season. We have a young team with only Mitch Benkic in his fourth andColeman Allen in his third season while the rest of our crew are in their first and second seasons.”
UBC has two swimmers who competed for Canada at the 15th FINA World Championships in Barcelona in the summer.
Allen, the reigning Canada West Male Swimmer of the Year is a specialist in the 50 and 100-metre butterfly. He also swam at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia, while Luke Peddie was part of the 4x100m freestyle relay team in Barcelona.
Allen and Peddie were also competitors at the FINA World Short Course Swimming Championships in Istanbul, Turkey in December.
Toronto has a butterfly specialist of their own in Zack Chetrat. He took part in the 200m fly in both Barcelona and Kazan. Chris Manning swam the 50m freestyle at the Worlds and the Universiade, where he was also part of Canada’s 4×100 freestyle relay team. The Varsity Blues also boast two others, Frank Despond and Edward Liu, who were at the 2013 Universiade.
Allen beat Chetrat to win the 100m butterfly at the CIS championship last year, setting a new meet record in the process. Chetrat took gold in the 200m race over Allen.
UBC swimmers opened their varsity season last weekend at the Swim BC Senior Circuit Short Course Meet. Evan Broderick, of Surrey, won the 200m breaststroke event while Allen claimed first in the 100m butterfly by nearly four seconds.
The Varsity Blues are coming off a victory in a tri-meet they hosted against the York Lions and Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks.
“Three weeks after this meet we head east to the University Challenge Cup hosted by Toronto, which is also home of this season’s CIS championships, so we will see these guys again,” said Price. “With eight rookies on the team, all tough competitive racing opportunities before the championship season in January and February is welcome.”
The “Ghoul in the Pool” meet will begin at 4 p.m. on Thursday with the 4x50m freestyle relay and a total of 16 events will take place.
Admission is free.
This release was provided to SwimSwam courtesy of UBC Swimming.