SHERBROOKE – Hocine Feddag of St. Hubert, Que., won four gold medals and was named swimmer of the meet after guiding McGill to finish first of six teams in the men's division at the second RSEQ University Cup competition, Saturday.
 
The Redbirds won gold in six of the 11 events, to go along with three silver medals and four bronzes. They racked up 513 points to easily outdistance second-place Ottawa (281). Laval was third with 225, followed by the Montreal carabins (210), UQTR (139.5) and Sherbrooke (133.5).
 
Following in the wake of McGill's 13 medal haul was Montreal with six (1-2-3), Ottawa (2-2-0), UQTR (0-2-2) and Laval (1-1-1). Sherbrooke, the host team, was kept off the podium.
 
Feddag, a 20-year-old mechanical engineering freshman, reached the U SPORTS qualifying standards in each of the four events that he won. The 6-foot-3, 180-pound sprinter captured the 50-metre freestyle (22.42) and 200m free (1:49.34), in addition to swimming the anchor legs of both, the 4x100 free relay (3:22.38) and the 4x100 medley relay (3:41.96).
 
"It was another successful meet for us," said McGill head coach Peter Carpenter, in an understatement. "We're particularly proud of the team's resilience through a very tough training period.  They trained really hard yesterday and then they really showed up today.  Both teams swam very well but whereas the women were particularly dominant at Cup 1 it was the men's team's turn to shine at Cup 2, putting in a dominant display."
 
Among the other McGillians to shine was Loic Courville-Fortin who was triple golden, to go with a bronze. The 20-year-old took the 200 back with a U SPORTS qualifying time of 1:58.45 and qualified with his winning time in the 100 butterfly (53.74). He was also part of the 4x100 MR with Romain van Moen on leadoff and anchor Erik Linseisen.
 
"We had a huge number of personal best times which are quite rare at this time of year," Carpenter noted. "I was particularly pleased to see Romain re-qualify for Nationals with a massive, best time in the 100 backstroke on the leadoff leg of the 4x100 medley relay in the first race of the night."
 
Others on the winning 4x100 free relay included River He in the leadoff spot, followed by Artiom Volodin and Bruno Dehem-Lemelin.
 
The defending league champion Redbirds have now captured each of the first two Cup meets. The next competition, Cup 3, will be hosted by Ottawa on Nov. 9.
 
 LINK TO WOMEN'S RECAP
 
COMPLETE RESULTS
 
SOURCE
Earl Zukerman
Sports Information Officer
Athletics & Recreation
McGill University
CELL: 514-983-7012
E-MAIL:earl.zukerman@mcgill.ca