UBC’s Markus Thormeyer Breaks Canadian Record in College Meet

Odlum Brown Limited Colleges Cup – Pacific

• November 3rd-4th, 2018
• UBC Aquatic Centre, Vancouver, British Columbia
• SCM (25m) course
• Day 1 Results
• Day 2 Results
• Final Team Scores

The defending 2018 Canadian U Sports National Champion UBC Thunderbirds defended their home pool this weekend at the 2018 Colleges Cup (which is not all collegiate teams) meet that featured most of the big players in western Canadian collegiate swimming.

That included a new Canadian Record for Markus Thormeyer, who swam a 1:52.12 to just barely sneak under the 1:52.15 mark done by Jake Tapp at the 2010 World Championships. The 21-year old Thormeyer, in his 3rd season of eligibility with the Thunderbirds, is the defending USports Champion in the 200 free, 100 back, and 200 back. The time jumps him to 4th in the world this year in the 200 back.

He also led off UBC’s 200 medley relay which combined to swim 1:37.24 – another Canadian National Record. The group of Thormeyer, Jaren LeFranc, Josiah Binnema, and Alex Loginov combined to break the old record, set by a National Team relay at the 2016 World Championships, of 1:37.89.

On the weekend, Thormeyer also picked up an individual win in the 100 back in 52.15 (a new Meet Record, breaking his own mark of 52.79 set last season), and was one of three swimmers under the old Meet Record in the 50 fly, finishing 2nd in 24.08, just .01 seconds behind teammate Josiah Binnema.

Other Meet Highlights:

• Stephen Calkins of Calgary came within .01 seconds of the Meet Record in the men’s 100 free. He swam a 48.47, which was .01 from Yuri Kisil’s 2015 record. That’s his lifetime best by over a second.
• Besides his Meet Record in the 50 fly, Binnema swept the butterfly events, including breaking his own Meet Records in both the 100 fly (53.18) and 200 fly (1:57.57).
• Manitoba’s Kelsey Wog won the women’s 50 breast in 31.03. That cleared her own mark of 31.22 set at last year’s meet. She followed that up with wins and Meet Records in the 200 breast (2:21.41 – taking more than 6 seconds off the old mark) and a win, but no record, in the 100 breast (1:06.10 – three-tenths slower than she swam last year). For good measure, she’d tag on wins in the 200 free on day 2 in yet another Meet Record, this time in 1:58.10; and the 200 IM in 2:10.61.
• UBC’s Ingrid Wilm won the women’s 100 backstroke in 59.04, repeating as champion and breaking her own Meet Record by 4-tenths of a second.
• UBC freshman Alex Pratt dominated both the men’s 200 free (1:47.44) and 400 free (3:47.53), winning the latter by almost 7 seconds.
• U of Victoria’s Danielle Hanus came within half-a-second of a legendary Meet Record in the 100 fly when she won in 1:00.41. The mark was set by American Natalie Coughlin at 59.99 in 2003, when American collegiate teams still attended this meet (Misty Hyman holds the 200 fly record).
• The UBC Thunderbirds broke Meet Records in all but 2 of the 8 relays contested at the meet. One of those 2 misses came as a result of a DQ.

Final Team Scores (top 3)

Men

1. UBC – 1,084
2. Calgary – 946
3. Simon Fraser – 665

Women

1. UBC – 1,069
2. Calgary – 789
3. WEST – 735