MONTREAL – Hazen Issa of McGill University and Reagan Crowell from Dalhousie have been named as the U SPORTS swimmers of the week for the period ending Jan. 21, 2024.
 
Issa, a 21-year-old civil engineering junior from Cairo (Egypt), earns the weekly national honour for the second time this season. Last week, he was named male swimmer of the meet as the McGill Redbirds finished first of six schools to capture the fourth RSEQ University Cup competition of the season, held in Ottawa on Sunday. He won 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, to be hosted by McGill, Mar. 7-9, in Pte. Claire, Que.
 
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). Issa enrolled at McGill in 2021 after graduating from Brighton College in Abu Dhabi.
 
Student-athletes from McGill have now won nine conference and four national weekly awards in 16 weeks over the 2023-24 season. That group includes two U SPORTS awards to swimmer Hazem Issa (Dec. 6, Jan. 24) and one for Elizabeth Ling (Dec. 6), along with volleyball's Victoria Iannotti (Nov. 15).
 
The nine RSEQ honourees include basketball's Sean Herscovitch (Nov. 29), volleyball's Victoria Iannotti (Nov. 14), swimming's Hazem Issa (Oct. 24) and Elizabeth Ling (three times: Oct. 11, Dec. 5, Jan. 23), plus rugby's Martin Laval (Sept. 12) and Lauren Minns (Sept. 5), in addition to football's Brandon Ciccarello (Sept. 5).
 
The aforementioned Issa and Crowell are among a dozen athletes over six sports that were named for the weekly honour by the national governing body. Capturing the honours in other sports were hockey players Annick Boudreau of Moncton and Christian Purboo of Queen's; basketball players Ellen Ougrinov of Toronto and Renoldo Robinson of Victoria, volleyballers Sabrina Mayer of UQAM and Sam Flowerday of Thompson Rivers, wrestlers Brianna Fraser of Brock and Gregor McNeil of McMaster along with track and field athletes Sienna MacDonald of Calgary and Dawson Mann of Manitoba.
 
SOURCE:
Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
CELL: 514-983-7012
E-MAIL: earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca