QUEBEC CITY – Pablo Collin was named swimmer of the meet as McGill swept the fourth leg of the RSEQ University Cup series, Friday, at Laval's Centre PEPS in the provincial capital.

The Redbirds collected a meet-high 11 podium finishes, with three gold medals, four silvers and four bronzes to finish first of six teams with 449 points, edging out second-place Ottawa (439.5). The host team from Laval finished a distant third with 272.5, followed by the Montreal Carabins (146), Sherbrooke (63) and UQTR (1).

McGill also won the women's division for the fourth consecutive meet (link to story).

It was the second meet victory in four competitions for the McGill men's program, which trails division-leading Ottawa by 22.84 points in the RSEQ standings. To put that into perspective, the Gee-Gees outscored McGill by approximately 77 and 121 points in the first and third meets of the season, while McGill edged out Ottawa by 16 and nine points in the second and fourth competitions.

Collin, a 21-year-old computer science sophomore from Marseille, France, won two golds, one silver and collected a meet-high 563 points on the FINA scoring scale to edge out Ottawa's Hugo Lemesle for his first-ever swimmer-of-the-meet award.  The 6-foot-2, 175-pound freestyle specialist finished first in the 200-metre free, posting a time of one minute, 53.44 seconds. It was his first-ever win in this event at the collegiate level and it was officially registered as the top swim of the meet, based on FINA points.

Collin also swam the third leg of the winning 4x100 freestyle relay which was clocked at 3:28.77. His silver medal performance was in the grueling 1500m free (16:30.14) and he also finished sixth in the 50m free (24.41).

"It was so rewarding to see Pablo succeed in that way," said McGill head coach Peter Carpenter.  "Last summer, he started a career as a top end triathlete, a goal that he is continuing to pursue and something that he has been working on here as well, which means that he has added in 1-2 bike workouts and 1-2 runs per week on top of his hectic swim and school schedule, while achieving an impressive GPA of 3.9 last semester.
 
"All this to say he had a difficult start to the season, dealing with a foot injury he sustained in a triathlon and a difficulty finding the right balance in all his training.  Well it is all coming together nicely now.  It was so rewarding to see him swim this way today."

Joining Collin on the winning relay was senior Bruno Dehem-Lemelin of Kirkland, Que., in leadoff, and sophomore Hazen Issa of Abu Dhabi, both civil engineering majors, and Montrealer Malachy Belkhelladi, a psychology sophomore, who swam the anchor leg.

The team's other gold medal performance came from Brian Yu, a 21-year-old psychology senior from Beijing, who won the 50m breaststroke, touching the wall in 28.94 seconds.

There were no new McGill qualifiers for Nationals in this one-day competition to add to the 16 men and 19 women that have already made the standard in earlier meets.

"The group was asked to bring positive energy to the deck today despite the hard work load they have been under and they were definitely the loudest team on deck," Carpenter added.  "The support they showed each other was incredible."

The McGill swimmers will continue training this weekend with a lift session on Saturday (Jan. 21) and a loose swim on Sunday. Next on tap is the RSEQ championship meet, the fifth and final leg of the University Cup series, which accounts for 50 per cent of the final standings. A three-day competition in Trois-Rivieres, Que., Feb. 3-5, it will be the last opportunity for swimmers to qualify for the U SPORTS national championship in Victoria, B.C., Feb. 23-25.

COMPLETE MEET RESULTS FROM UNIVERSITY CUP 4 (PDF)

RSEQ STANDINGS (PDF)

RSEQ MEET-BY-MEET RESULTS


SOURCE
Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
514-398-7012 (Tel.)
www.mcgillathletics.ca
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca