OTTAWA – Hazem Issa of McGill University was named male swimmer of the meet as the No. 5-ranked Redbirds finished first of six schools to capture the fourth RSEQ University Cup competition of the season, held Sunday in Ottawa.

It was the fourth meet title in as many RSEQ competitions for the McGill men, who racked up 475 points to finish ahead of Ottawa (437). The Montreal Carabins were a distant third with 182, followed by Laval (178), Sherbrooke (133) and UQTR (44).

The McGill men posted six first-place finishes in 10 race finals.

Issa, a 21-year-old civil engineering junior from Cairo, in Egypt, collected two gold medals and a pair of silvers, in addition to being the highest scoring male athlete of the meet with 598 points, based upon the FINA scale. The 6-foot-5, 212-pound sprinter won the 50m freestyle (22.97), where he met the qualifying standard for Nationals. He also guided McGill to victory in the 4x100 freestyle relay (3:20.63). His silver medal performances occurred in the 100 butterfly (55.74) and the 4x100 medley relay (3:44.43).

Joining him on the winning relay was Bruno Dehem-Lemelin, Malachy Belkhelladi and Pablo Collin, last year's McGill male athlete of the year. It was the first meet of the season for Collin, who finished with a pair of golden performances. He sat out the fall semester while recovering from a broken hand suffered last summer while training for a triathlon. Collin also won the 200 free with a U SPORTS qualifying time of 1:50.15. He finished fifth in the 50 free and sixth in the grueling 1500 free.

"Our women continued their run of dominance and our men took Ottawa's best shot and still managed to win again," McGill head coach Peter Carpenter said.  "I was particularly proud of how the team performed under duress.  The last three weeks of training have been by far the hardest of the season and we still had some team members manage to come up with seasonal best times. It was also nice to finally get Pablo Collin into his first meet of the year and he even managed to win (two golds)."

Up next for the team will be the RSEQ championship meet in Quebec City, Feb. 16-18.

McGill has qualified 19 men and 15 women for the U SPORTS national championships, to be held locally at the Pointe Claire pool, Mar. 7-9.

LINK TO ARTICLE ON THE WOMEN'S DIVISION

COMPLETE RESULTS

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