Swim Relay Results!

With the swim relay approaching, the chattering between competitors increased. Who would reign the victor? Many questioned Matt Reeves capabilities to hold the golden cape in a quest for the Vincent Lavallee Cup.

One anonymous athlete, lets call her Lauren... No wait, forget that, we will call her Miss Sagadore was overhead taunting Reeve by saying his new hardware would be such a hinderance that he would sink to the bottom of the pool, face first. To this, his only rebuttal was to remind this Miss Sagadore of a game of cribbage from the night before, were victory was easily achieved, as it would similarly be on the morning of the race.

Being a swim competition, the dynamic of the day was very different from the uphill time trial, Nathaniel "Flipper" Janzen was by far the favorite team leader for the relays. Upon the announcement of the teams, an observant fan claims to have seen a single solitary tear matched with a silent fist pump from Andrew Wight as he heard he was paired with Flipper. Would this team be too much to beat?

Flipper and Andrew paired with Celeste Pakstas and Melanie Van Soeren were up to the challenge of being the "team to beat".

Not to be outdone, Rachel Schoeler, along with newcomers Heather Enns, Kyowon Kim and Claire Haddock toed up to the line next to lane number 1.

Lauren Sagadore after a late and rather difficult night filled with loss at cribbage would not be silenced on the far side of the pool. Together with Carsen Cheyne, Annie Mauer and Jesse Chao, their lane easily provided the most smack talk despite the fact that 3 members of the relay were mostly silent during the events.

As would be expected, local favorite and generally good looking guy Vincent Lavallee was obviously already laying down excuses of feeling light headed. He slept through his alarm and had to rush to the pool having to pass on breakfast. His team of Scott Chris (the man with two first names), Derrick Lee and Jason Chang did not heed to Vincent's excuses and prepared for the fierce battle at hand.

Vincent Lavallee with excuse #37: My beard slowed my down

Finally and surely not least, Alex Lush and her team of Bandits, including Golden Cape Wearer Matt Reeve finish up the list of teams. Paired with Winston Guo (lacking his trusty Harmin the Garmin), and Lara Russel, they would try to distance themselves atop the leader board.

Winston showing how to perform his patented streamline

In a classic countdown fashion, Ivan started the racing. Scott Chris reaching the wall first in a decisive manner tagged the wall for Derrick to follow. After 2 swimmers it appeared as though leader Matt Reeve was in danger of losing his title to Flipper Janzen whose team was in the lead. That was until Reeve pulled himself up from 4th overall into 2nd with some fierce swimming. Legend has it, that Matt Reeve did not even breathe, instead he just side swam all the while smiling towards his competitors with his new headware. Defying any of them to make fun of him.

Matt Reeve moving up the ranks... in the pool.

After much more smack talk from Vincent Lavallee on the blocks, Rachel Schoeler declared:

"Your slow, I caught up to you by the wall, we flipped together and I beat you back"

Vincent Diving in

Followed by Rachel

Into the second round of 100's, the athletes were getting tired. By this point lane number one was adequately titled for Flipper Janzen along with Melanie, Andrew and Celeste were far in the lead. Many spectators in fact mentioned that Flipper really had no affect on the outcome of today, his team carried his weight as he struggled through the water, fortunately with enough buffer from his teammates to seize the victory.

Flipper cruising in to victory

Former teammate Andrew Wight upon winning his first UBCTC Fall Classic Series event could be seen once again performing a fist pump, however this time, it was not silent.

Andrew Wight (left) holding back tears

In a post race interview Andrew could be seen crying tears of joy while Melanie van Soeren described the days events.

"This was really a great effort by everyone in lane 1 today. Well except Nathaniel, we think all the Flipper names have gotten to his head. We really needed to make up a lot of time for him, otherwise I don't think we would have won."

After Sundays events there was a big mixup in the overall. The results from the day can be seen below.

1st

Nathaniel Janzen

Celeste Pakstas

Andrew Wight

Melanie Van Soeren

2nd

Alex Lush

Matt Reeve

Winston Guo

Lara Russel

3rd

Rachel Schoeler

Heather Enns

Kyowon Kim

Clara Haddock

4th

Vincent Lavallee

Scott Chris

Derrick Lee

Jason Chang

5th

Lauren Sagadore

Carson Cheyne

Annie Mauer

Jesse Chao

The Look of Champions: Flipper, Andrew, Celeste, Melanie

With this we see the closest the Fall Classic has ever been for the female leader with Lauren Sagadore and Melanie van Soeren tied for first place.

In the overall title Matt Reeve managed to stretch out his lead on all the competitors but Nathaniel, however he managed to retain the overall title. This is what he had to say about it.

"Well you know, there was a lot of smack talk coming into this event, some people were making fun of my braces and they just really thought they could beat me. But I knew in the end I just had to pull out all the stops and take it home. Although I didn't come out on top, I still have the overall points lead and I'm happy with that. "

Golden Cape Wearer: Matt REEVE

A special mention must be made to Scott Chris for hand stitching the Golden Cape. An Icon of the UBCTC Fall Classic Series