The Burnaby Mountain Lions set a new provincial mixed freestyle relay record at the B.C. high school sports swimming championships at Watermania in Richmond.
The Lions’ team of Brian Fung, Elaine Lam, Cristian Cristurean and Robyn Lee shattered the eight-year-old record in the preliminaries, and then set another new mark of 1:45.35 en route to the gold medal in the final of the 200-metre relay. The old record of 1:47.20 was set in 2005 by West Vancouver.
Lee, one of more than a dozen swim academy students on the Mountain team, helped the Lions to a fourth-place overall finish.
“It was pretty cool. It was a busy meet,” said Lee, who swims for Simon Fraser Aquatics. “At the club level there is more focus individually, but when you’re racing for your team it’s more like time to represent your school. You just get into it more. It’s your teammates are swimming, too.”
Lee also won an individual gold in the open girls’ 50m free and was fourth at the 100m distance. Cristurean was a runner-up in the boys’ 100m free. Fung had strong final swims in the 100m breaststroke and 200m individual medley.
St. George’s took the overall aggregate title with 629 total points. Mulgrave placed second at 489 and Delta third with 394 points, while Burnaby North rounded out the top 10 at 246.
Mountain also placed third in the boys’ aggregate behind St. George’s and runner-up West Point Grey Academy. North finished in sixth spot.
York House topped the girls’ division. Mountain and New Westminster finished 13th and 20th, respectively.
The Mountain Lions also received strong supporting swims from Daniel Kilmaster, who was fifth in the boys’ open 100m free, and fourth, along with teammates David Pinsky, Mark Peng and Igor Lazic, in the 200m free relay. Pinsky also had a best fifth in the 50m free.
Mitchell Kilmaster had four top-eight B swims, including fourth in the 100m free, fifth in the 50m butterfly, sixth in the 50m free and eighth in the 50m backstroke.
On the girls’ side, Aoi Hida was a runner-up in the B 50m back and ninth in the fly. Wendy Yang placed fourth in the open girls’ 100m fly.
North had three medal-winning B relays.
Aaron Cheung, Bryan Cheung and Jun Shong Liu won a silver medals with Kevin Hu in the 200m free, and a bronze with Kenneth Ng in the 200m medley.
A mixed North team of Bonnie Cheung, Sam Fok, Ceci Deng and Roy Lin also picked up a second-place medal in the 200m free.
Bryan Cheung also placed sixth in the 100m B free and mixed relay with Ng, Bonnie Cheung and Selena Cui. Ng was also eighth in the 50m B breast. Liu was seventh in the 50m B free.
Aaron Cheung placed eighth in the 50m B fly, while Alicia Kan was sixth in the 100m girls’ open fly and seventh in the 200m IM.
Gareth Jones of Burnaby South was second overall in the 100m boys’ B free. He also helped the Rebels’ 200m boys’ relay team of Stewart Crombie, David Edgar and Trevor Jones to a sixth-place finish.
