THUNDER BAY – SPORTS – Thunderbolts hosted the Northwestern Ontario Long Course Swim Meet the weekend of January 27-28, 2024. The home team dominated the meet with a score of 1228 total points, which is almost three times higher than the next best team.
The event takes place annually at the Bolts hometown pool, the Canada Games Complex, and welcomed other teams and their athletes from around the area. With a fantastic turnout from our swim team the list is long when it comes to the medal winners.
On the men’s side, we saw so many impressive swims and gold place finishes by Jed Demillo, Jack Dennis, Zaejan Gesta, Daniel Giardetti, Soren Kingston, Dante Martino, Marco Martino, Imran Mohammed, Matthieu Pagaduan, William Rose-Weston, and Oliver Shippam.
A standout for the boys was Dante Martino who had a perfect meet winning 9 golds! He was excited as he commented, “It was fun to be able to race at home, we’ve been training hard, so it was good to race with friends and family cheering us on. My next goals are to make Provincial times.”
The women showed equally inspiring results with gold place finishes from Emily Agar, Riley Agar, Vivienne Bodkin, Sierra Bourgeois, Abbi Brown, Taylor Brown, Maggie Chisholm, Ava Drainville, Maddie Giardetti, Grace Massaro, Roxy Ramirez, Abigail Rose-Weston, Eloise Rose-Weston, and Vaughan Shippam.
10-year-old Vaughan Shippam swam a remarkable race, crowds roaring during her finish as she broke the record in the women’s 10 and under 1500 freestyle event.
The Bolts won 9 out of 10 high points categories! Winners were: Daniel Giardetti, Dante Martino, Jack Dennis, Matthieu Pagaduan, Oliver Shippam, Sierra Bourgeois, Taylor Brown, Grace Massaro, and Vivi Bodkin.
It is with pride that we would also like to mention other medal winners from the Bolts including Rakan Bassuony, Cadmen Cooney, Lukas Kwasny-Doucette, Kai McNaul, Nolan Middleton, Samantha Bergamo, Morgan Earl, Seija Erickson, Kate Hupka, Brooke lgo, Lexi Igo, Olivia Love, Audrey Marion, Evelyn McMahan, Kallie Miles, Olivia Wark, and Brooke Young.
Our provincial level athletes are next competing in Ontario Festivals and Ontario Youth Juniors. Our younger athletes now turn their focus on upcoming meets in Ottawa and then the Grand Prix hosted once again at the Complex at the end of May. Happy training!
