Varsity Blues Colin Russell broke two national records, won three individual gold medals, one individual silver and three relay medals on his way to becoming the 2009 CIS male swimmer of the year at the national championships hosted by UBC this weekend (Feb. 19-21).
In his first CIS race, the 2008 Olympian swam the 200m freestyle in a time of 1:43.31, breaking the CIS meet record of 1:44.47 held by UBC’s Brian Johns in 2007, and setting a new Canadian standard previously held by Rick Say (1:43.68, 2003).
The Burlington, Ont. native also bettered Brent Hayden’s mark (47.47, 2006) in the men’s 100m freestyle, setting a new national record in a time of 47.23. His third gold came when he was the first to touch the wall in 22.03 in the 50m. By virtue of his wins in the 50m and 100m, the arts and science major claimed the CIS championship’s male Sprinter’s Cup - Russell became the first winner of the Cup since Hayden took home the award in 2003 swimming for UBC.
Russell narrowly missed a national record in the men's 50 breaststroke, finishing behind UBC's Scott Dickens (Ancaster, Ont.), who took the title and national senior record with a winning time of 27.53 on Saturday. Russell touched second in 27.66
In addition to his individual performance, Russell swam the fastest relay leg in Canadian history in the 800m freestyle relay, putting his team in contention for the gold, which they narrowly missed by two tenths of a second. Russell also led the Blues men’s team to a silver medal in the 400m individual medley relay and a bronze medal in the 4x100m freestyle relay.
The Varsity Blues men’s team claimed the overall bronze medal with 404 points, finishing the three-day event behind UBC Thunderbirds and Calgary Dinos.
