The University of Toronto Varsity Blues took part in the annual Downtown Sprint Meet inside the Athletic Centre on Friday (Oct. 25) evening.

"The sprint meet this early in the  season accomplishes a real simple goal--getting the athletes up on the blocks to start to get their bodies back into race mode," said Varsity Blues head assistant coach Linda Kiefer. 

One of the Blues standouts was third-year backstroke specialist Andrew Herman from California, who won the 50 backstroke.

"His winning time (24.98) was nearly a full second faster than last year at this time and he went on to win his first ever national medal last year, so he is setting himself up for a great year" said Varsity Blues head coach Byron MacDonald.

Other winners for the Blues included rookies Albert Bouley (50fly) ; Ben Winterborn (200 back) and Angel Yao (200 fly), along with a pair of fourth-year swimmers from BC-Angelica Bath in the 200 backstroke and Tina Guan in the 100 breaststroke.

"Overall the meet accomplished our goal of getting back acclimatized to racing" said MacDonald."Now it's back to hard training as we head down to Bahamas for reading week for an intense training camp."

Next up on the teams competition schedule will be a dual meet in Montreal against perennially nationally ranked opponents in the McGill men's and women's teams. The Blues are scheduled to dive in at 12 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 10.