Ashley Ko came away with a bounty of medals from the Burnaby Barracudas’ Grand Prix swim meet last weekend.
The first-year Barracuda club summer swimmer won five Division 1 races, including the 50- and 100-metre freestyle and 100m individual medley. Ko also won a sixth medal, placing second in the 50m butterfly at the two-day meet held at Central Park outdoor pool.
Barracuda swimmers came away with 45 individual medals, including 16 gold.
The Burnaby Mountain Mantas boasted 17 individual gold medals – a dozen coming from three club swimmers, who all garnered four wins in their respective age categories.
Hannah Cui won the free, the backstroke and IM at Div. 3, while Octavia Lau did the same at Div. 4.
Bryan Yu won the 100m breaststroke and fly, as well as the free and IM in Div. 5 boys’ races.
Other big winners from the host ’Cudas were Cayden Liang, who won the Div. 2 boys’ free sprint and placed runner-up in three other races.
Div. 2 Conlin Duong and Div. 3 Ernest Hoptioncann both won two gold and a bronze. Gareth Jones also won a pair of gold in Div. 6. Randy Ho also won a gold, three silvers and a bronze in Div. 6 boys.
Also winning gold for the hosts were Alessia Marquez and first-years Adam Graham and Fernando Lu.
Other multi-medallists included Justin Lee, Emi Wong, Cameron Dickson and Rowan Cheung.
Garrett Yeo, Maria Sulaver, Martina Blazevic, Natalia Blazevic, Mari Wong, Marcellus Dente, Ricky Dang and Nan Phung also medalled.
For the Mantas, Kevin Wei won two gold and a silver in Div. 2 boys’ swims.
Harvey Lee, Kenneth Ng and Teresa Peng each won a gold, a silver and a bronze in their respective age groups.
Xavier Lau, Shalynn Lee, Selena Cui and Lauren Sartori, with three second-place ribbons in Div. 5, also medalled for the Mantas.
The summer swim season runs through June and July, culminating in a Simon Fraser region qualifying meet at Central Park from Aug. 2 to 3.
The top swimmers from the regionals will qualify for the B.C. championships to be held in Kamloops Aug. 15 through 17.
