Print

E-mail

Text

Hassaan Abdel Khalik is proving he can swim with the big fish.

The Grade 12 Silverthorne Collegiate student, who turned 17 in November, led the Etobicoke Swim Club charge last weekend at the Canada Cup, setting four new age group standards.

Abdel Khalik, who leaves for the University of Michigan in September, won the 800-metre freestyle and finished second in the 100m, 200m and 400m freestyle events at the Etobicoke Olympium meet. He also led to a gold medal the 800m relay team, which also included Etobians Aimeson King, 17, Gleb Suvorov, 16, and Bogdan Knezevic, 17.

Knezevic also came third in the 100m IM and 4th in the 200m IM.

"Hassaan is showing that he can get in there with some of the more established senior boys and that he can compete," said club head coach Kevin Thorburn. "Some of them are quite a bit bigger and more mature physically, so he's got some room to improve, but he's there holding his own."

November was a good month for Abdel Khalik for another reason.

He improved on a 200m age group freestyle record set 27 years ago by Canadian Alex Bauman, which, coupled with the Canada Cup success, the youngster claims, is going a long way in proving to himself and others he's worthy of racing with the country's best.

Abdel Khalik, fluent in both short and long course, classifies the results over the weekend as one of his greatest in-pool achievements to date.

"It really showed me that I can compete against some of the older, more reputable guys. It did great things for my confidence."

Locals Lauren Earp and Jackie Keire, both 14, also notched new standards for the club.

Earp, 14, made finals in the 100m free, breaking a provincial record, and came close to re-writing an age group standard in the 50m and 100m free.

Keire broke a provincial record in the 400m free.

Keire, Earp, Sasha Menu-Courey, 17, and Heather MacLean, 16 all combined for a bronze medal in the 400m free relay and set a new provincial age group record for 15 to 17 year olds. "And they are not too far off the senior record," said the head coach.

Maclean also finished sixth in the 50m free and forth in the 100m and 200m free.

Thorburn, who heads the high performance program at Etobicoke Swim Club, said most of the club's future prospects come from its development side, which, he said, saw a sizeable increase in interest this year - "probably the Olympics piqued everyone's interest."

"We're into developing our own kids," he said. "The vast majority of the swimmers performing well for us are from our grass roots program within."

"We're pretty much the best high school-aged club in Canada."

Some of the club's top swimmers are competing in the North York Aquatic Club's Youth Cup, hosted out of the Olympium, before heading south the following weekend to compete in an international meet in Portland, Oregon.

Knezevic, Abdel Khalik, and MacLean are also preparing for the Junior Pan Pacific, which take place Jan. 10 to 14.