VICTORIA, BC — Clement Secchi of the McGill men's swim team won a pair of gold medals, one bronze and broke a meet record to highlight the first day of the U SPORT national championships, hosted by the University of Victoria, Thursday, at Saanich Commonwealth Place.
 
Riding the momentum of their RSEQ conference championship sweep, McGill swimmers performed strongly in the morning preliminaries, which resulted in a total of 16 evening swims in the finals. They came away with four medals, including one silver and a bronze. McGill swimmers also posted a couple school records in the morning prelims, which are held in a short-course pool (25m). The evening finals are held in a long-course (50m) pool which involve fewer turns and thus do not qualify for the school record book.

"The team has been on a bit of a roller-coaster ride since the RSEQ championship," said head coach Peter Carpenter. "We had several huge breakthroughs and massive best times. Four medals in one night is not something I have ever seen from our team, in fact I can't ever remember winning more than two in one night so obviously these great swims were the highlights of the day for us."

Secchi, a management sophomore from France, established a championship meet record in his gold medal-winning 50m backstroke, clocking in at 25.82 seconds. It erased the meet mark of 25.98 set at the 2016 nationals.
 
The 5-foot-10 sprinter then went on to strike gold in the 100 butterfly (53.55), leaving UBC's Dmitriy Lim, the silver-medal finisher, in his wake by 1.51 seconds.

Finally, he capped off a brilliant day by helping the men's 4x100 freestyle relay reach the podium with a third-place time of 3:27.42. The foursome also included William Simpson in leadoff, followed by Secchi, Brandon Freiberger, an engineering senior from Ladner, B.C., and Marius Collin, an architecture junior from France, who swam the anchor leg.

"I was going for (the record) and knew it was going to happen, with my team behind me. Let's go McGill," shouted an emotional Secchi in a post-race interview on the live stream from CBC Sports. "I've been training (hard) on the butterfly and the backstroke just came (easy to me)."
 
Simpson, a psychology senior from Kingston, Ont., posted a school record time in the 200 freestyle prelims, touching the wall in 1:48.43, erasing his old standard of 1:48.72. He qualified for the final and finished eighth in 1:54.52.
 
On the women's side, Daphne Danyluk, a science freshman from Rivière-des-Prairies, Que., tied U of T's Rachel Rode for silver in the 50 backstroke, with both clocking in at 28.99. She was McGill's first female rookie to medal at Nationals since 2014.

"I was really happy when I saw that I placed second in the 50 back," Danyluk said. "I'm really excited to have won a silver for McGill and am looking forward to the next two days of racing."
 
Grace Valihora, an arts sophomore from Toronto, broke a school record in the prelims of the 100 butterfly, clocking in at 1:01.60 to better the previous best of 1:02.22, held since 2018 by Cecile Wiederkehr. Valihora qualified for the consolation final, where she was fifth in 1:03.16.

Live streaming coverage is available for free on CBCSports.ca, CBC Gem, the CBC Sports for iOS and Android devices, and on USPORTS.LIVE.  

STREAMING HIGHLIGHTS ON CBC GEM

Full Results
 
DAY 1 TEAM STANDINGS
 
MEN (Nelson C. Hart Trophy)

1. UBC, 360 points
2. Calgary, 272
3. McGill, 241
4. Toronto, 222.5
5. Victoria, 176
6. Regina, 163
7. Ottawa, 145
8. Montreal, 113
9. Alberta, 100
10. Laval, 83
11. Western, 58
12. Waterloo, 37
13. McMaster, 32
14. Acadia, 27
15. Dalhousie, 20
16. Manitoba, 17
17. Guelph, 16
18. Thompson Rivers, 6.5
19. Brock, 6
20. Lethbridge, 4


WOMEN:

1. Toronto, 307
2. UBC, 304
3. Calgary, 281
4. Victoria, 213
5. Montreal, 201
6. Ottawa, 99
7. Western, 90
8. Dalhousie, 87
9. McMaster, 84.5
10. Manitoba, 83.5
11. Rouge et Or, 75
12. McGill, 72.5
13. Guelph, 41
14. Alberta, 31
15. Regina, 26
16. UNB, 25
17. Waterloo, 22.5
18. Laurentian, 22
19. Acadia, 21
20. Sherbrooke, 17
21. Wilfrid Laurier, 16
22. UQTR, 14
23. Lethbridge, 2



INDIVIDUAL MEDALISTS
 
M 200m Freestyle
1. Markus Thormeyer, UBC, 1:48.29
2. Davide Casarin, Ottawa, 1:48.94
3. Alexander Pratt, UBC, 1:51.11

M 50m Back
1. Clément Secchi, McGill, 25.82 U SPORTS record
2. Robert Hill, Calgary, 26.10
3. Thomas Lafontaine-Giguère, Montreal, 26.63

M 100m Breast
1. Jaren LeFran, UBC, 1:03.02
2. Graeme Aylward, Toronto, 1:03.21
3. Benjamin Blackmon, Calgary, 1:03.50

M 100m Fly
1. Clément Secchi, McGill, 53.55
2. Dmitriy Lim, UBC, 55.06
3. Osvald Nitski, Toronto, 55.23

M 400m IM
1. Josh Zakala, Victoria, 4:21.80 U SPORTS record
2. Brodie Young, UBC, 4:23.07
3. Brian Palaschuk, Regina, 4:23.60

M 4x100m Freestyle Relay
1. UBC, 3:24.33
(Alexander Pratt, Matthew Meuleman, Dmitriy Lim, Markus Thormeyer)
2. Toronto, 3:25.97
(Cameron Kidd, Bjoern-Ole Schrader, Gael Chaubet, Bernard Godolphin)
3. McGill, 3:27.42
(Will Simpson, Clément Secchi, Brandon Freiberger, Marius Collin)

W 200m Freestyle
1. Emily Overholt, UBC, 1:58.80
2. Danica Ludlow, Calgary, 2:00.02
3. Aleksa Gold, Toronto, 2:01.34

W 50m Back
1. Danielle Hanus, Victoria, 28.05
2. Daphne Danyluk, McGill, 28.99
2. Rachel Rode, Toronto, 28.99

W 100m Breast
1. Kelsey Wog, Manitoba, 1:06.44
2. Hillary Metcalfe, UBC, 1:10.59
3. Lauren Shearer, Ottawa, 1:10.75

W 100m Fly
1. Danielle Hanus, Victoria, 58.74
2. Hannah Genich, Toronto, 59.27
3. Anais Arlandis, Montreal, 1:01.52

W 400m IM
1. Emily Overholt, UBC, 4:38.58 U SPORTS record
2. Megan Dalke, UBC, 4:49.84
3. Allison McCloy, Calgary, 4:51.57
W 4x100m Freestyle Relay

1. UBC, 3:45.42
(Hoi Lam Tam, Quincy Brozo, Mackenzie Gunther, Emily Overholt)
2. Toronto, 3:45.77
(Aleksa Gold, Georgia Kidd, Sarah Polley, Ainsley Murray)
3. Montreal, 3:50.12
(Charlotte Beauchemin, Marie-Lou Lapointe, Anais Arlandis, Frederique Cigna)