Van Herk’s Make Splash at Speedo Eastern Canadian Championships

Justine and Shania Van Herk travelled with their coach, and father, John Van Herk last weekend to participate in the Speedo Eastern Championships in Gatineau Quebec.

This regional competition is held annually in February in various cities throughout Eastern Canada and is held on the same weekend as the Speedo Western Championships, bringing together a great mix of Canada’s senior, youth and junior swimmers.

This year, the competition was hosted at the Gatineau Sports Centre, Gatineau, Qc, February 16th -19th. The meet ran with a format combining both short course and long course race formats. The preliminaries were swam with a short course format (25m pool lengths) and the finals were performed in the long course format (50m pool lengths). This competition serves as an excellent racing and development opportunity for Youth and Junior competitors.

18 year old Justine Van Herk of the Blenheim Blast placed thirty first in the women’s 16 & over 50m Backstroke in a personal best time of 30.61 seconds. Justine also shaved over a second off her 100m Backstroke to finish in thirty-eighth place in a time of 1:05.27. Justine also competed in the 50m Free (27.58).

15 year old Shania Van Herk also rose to the challenge at this prestigious event, placing twenty-sixth in the girls 15 & under 50m backstroke in a personal best time of 31.55 seconds. Shania was also twenty sixth in the 100m backstroke (1:07.14), and was thirty-seventh in the 100m Freestyle (1:01.00) .

The entire Blenheim Blast Swim Team will travel to the Sherk Centre in Leamington Sunday February 26 to participate in the next S.E.A.L. Meet of the season.