Forbes breaks provincial record at AUS Invitational

By Chris Ballard

The Memorial swim teams continued their busy season with a trip to Halifax for the Atlantic University Sport Invitational.

The talk of the weekend was the performance of David Forbes. On Saturday morning, Forbes started his weekend with a bang, setting a new provincial record in the 100 metre freestyle, clocking in with a time of 51.20 seconds, breaking former Sea-Hawk Chris Daly’s record from 1984. His strong weekend continued with a win in the event, qualifying him for the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) Championships, to be hosted by the University of Toronto in February.

Forbes strutted his stuff in the 50 metre butterfly later in the day, touching the wall in a time of 25.80 seconds, also good enough to qualify for the CIS Championships.

Forbes wasn’t the only swimmer to have a good weekend in men’s competition. Fifth- year veteran Tim Rusted finished in third place overall in the 200 metre individual medley and the 4x100 metre medley relay squad finished a solid third overall on the back of a personal best by rookie Adam Harvey who finished his 100 metre backstroke in an impressive 1:01:50.

On day two of competition, Forbes once again stole the show with a stellar 23.52 second showing in the 50 metre freestyle, good enough for first place. Forbes capped off his weekend with a fourth place finish in the 100 metre butterfly, which qualified him for the CIS Championships in each of the four individual events he entered.

Making the trip to the CIS Championships with Forbes will be Tim Rusted, who added a personal best 16:17:14 in the 1500 metre freestyle, earning him a berth in his second straight CIS Championships.

These strong swims from the men’s team resulted in a third place overall team finish, capping off a solid weekend against a tough field, including teams from McGill, Acadia, Dalhousie, UNB and Mount Allison.

On the women’s side, it was second year Kelsie Rogers leading the way. Rogers placed third in the 100 metre freestyle, narrowly missing the CIS Championship standard by one second, coming in at 59.86 seconds. She followed this up with another strong showing in the 50 metre butterfly, posting a personal best 30.17 seconds.

Rogers again missed out on her ticket to the CIS Championships with a third place showing in the 50 metre freestyle and a personal best time of 1:08:18 in the 100 metre butterfly, helping her team to a fourth place overall team finish.

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