MONTREAL – Mathieu Ionescoux-Tremblay of St. Hubert, Que., won a gold medal and was one of five McGill University men to qualify for Nationals at the Coupe de Quebec Senior, a three-day open meet held at the Centre Claude-Robillard, Nov. 23-26.
 
The Redbirds captured  one gold, three silvers and three bronzes to finish with seven podiums at the event, which was recently added to the team schedule as another opportunity to post qualifying times for the U SPORTS national championships, to be hosted by McGill at the Pointe Claire pool, March 7-9.
 
Ionescoux-Tremblay, a 23-year-old psychology freshman, won the men's 200-metre individual medley with a long-course time of two minutes, 8.04 seconds.
 
The Redbirds have now qualified 20 swimmers for nationals with three meets remaining before the U SPORTS championship. The other new qualifiers included first-year Laval transfer Jeremy Koueiki of Blainville, Que., sophomore Lian Lynk of Mountain Lakes, N.J., senior Cameron Carlyle of Brockville, Ont., and Malachy Belkhelladi, a Montrealer.
 
Belkhelladi, a 20-year-old psychology junior, won silver in the 100 freestyle and bronze in the 50 free.
 
"This meet was all about qualifying and to get eight of them (including three women) was really incredible," said McGill head coach Peter Carpenter. "It was also a great opportunity for our athletes to swim short-course preliminaries in the 25-yard pool and long-course finals in the 50-metre pool, just like the format will be at the U SPORTS championship."
 
McGill's other silver medal performances were by sophomore Robin Domingo (200 butterfly) of Greer, S.C., and Hazem Issa (50 fly). Bronze medal finishes were achieved by the aforementioned Koueiki (200 breaststroke) and Erik Linseisen (50 breast), a junior from Burlington, Vt.
 
This competition replaced a league meet in Ottawa that was postponed the previous week and will be rescheduled for the second semester. Next up on McGill's schedule is the third Quebec University Cup, scheduled for Dec. 1 in Trois-Rivieres.
 
"The other really great by-product of this (senior) meet was that it was a good chance to showcase our varsity swim team competing in the civil (club) circuit," Carpenter noted. "My hope is for us to continue competing at this meet in future years as it was amazing competition for our swimmers."
 
LINK TO WOMEN'S RECAP
 
LINK TO COMPLETE RESULTS
 
RSEQ STATS & STANDINGS

SOURCE:
Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
McGill University Athletics & Recreation
514-983-7012 (cell)
www.mcgillathletics.ca
earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca