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is id eh al to n. co m O ak vi lle B ea ve r | T hu rs da y, F eb ru ar y 22 , 2 01 8 | OLYMPICS McEachran sixth in Olympic slopestyle debut Evan McEachran fin­ ished sixth in his Olympic debut, contributing to a strong showing by Canada in men's slopestyle skiing. Canada took three of the top six spots, includ­ ing a bronze medal by McEachran's teammate Alex Beaulieu-Marchand. The Oakville skier fin­ ished just three points be­ hind his teammate. McEachran, the second skier on the course in the final, punctuated his run with a 1440 with a Japan grab and earned a score of 89.4. He sat second behind Norway's Oystein Braaten (95.0) through the first of three runs in the final, with each skier's best score counting toward the final standings. McEachran clipped his ski on a rail and fell dur­ ing his second run, allow­ ing Beaulieu-Marchand (92.4) and Great Britain's James Woods (91.0) to move ahead and bump him to fourth. Sitting just outside of the medals, McEachran came off early on a rail slide on his final run, end­ ing his chances of improv­ ing his score. American Nick Goepper (93.6) and teammate Teal Harle (90.0) would drop McEa­ chran back two more spots during the final round. "6th place at my first Olympics!" McEachran tweeted after the competi­ tion. "It's bittersweet for sure. A small mistake through the rails cost me, but I'm still so hyped to be here! Wish we didn't have to wait 4 years until the next one." It was highly competi­ tive qualifying round, with the reigning world champion McRae Wil­ liams and X-Games gold medallist Henrik Harlaut failing to move on. McEachran needed a strong performance in his final qualifying run to make the 12-man final. He scored a 74.8 on his first qualifying run, putting him in 10th place. But by the time he came up for his final run, he had been bumped to 13th, just out of position to advance. With a strong showing on the rail section and nailing all three of his jumps, he scored an 87.80 to move into ninth but half of the 30-man field was still to come. The next skier down the course, Sweden's Os­ car Wester delivered the best qualifying run, drop­ ping McEachran to 10th. With six skiers remain­ ing, McEachran was 11th and could only wait to see if his score would hold up. It did, giving McEachran three more runs in the fi­ nal. Evan M cE achran /P ho to Oakville's Evan McEachran finished sixth in his Olympic slopestyle skiing debut Sunday. HIGH SCHOOL Record setting day for Montague, Chin HERB GARBUTT hgarbutt@ burlingtonpost.com Taking almost two sec­ onds off the regional record in minute-long race, you would think Cameron Mon­ tague would have had an easy time winning the se­ nior boys' 100-metre free­ style. Except that the Oakville Trafalgar swimmer's main rival was Burlington's Josh Selway, the previous record holder. Both separated themselves from the pack by more than seven seconds and eclipsed the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Confer­ ence (GHAC) record of 57.43 seconds that Selway set a year ago. But it was Montague that touched the wall first in 55.58 seconds, just ahead of the defending champion's time of 55.90. It was the second GHAC record of the day for Mon­ tague, who was competing in the high school division for the first time. Earlier, he shaved two-tenths of a sec­ ond off the 50m freestyle mark, winning in 25.22 sec­ onds. "It's been three years since I swam club, so going from six practices a week to two practices a week, I was pretty happy to get close to my personal best," said Montague, who competed for the Oakville Aquatic Club for seven years. "I nev­ er thought about two re­ cords coming out of it." Montague and Selway, a junior 100m freestyle OF- SAA gold medallist, fin­ ished one-two in both free­ style events, setting up a showdown at the provincial high school championship. "It was his record so it should be quite competi­ tive," Montague said. "I love having someone there with me to push me." "It's very clear that GHAC is becoming quite a tough championship," said OT swim coach David Lan­ dry. "Cameron and Josh Sel­ way, that's going to be quite the competitive race (at OF- SAA)." Montague wasn't alone in breaking a pair of re­ cords. Abbey Park's Am­ brose Chin also established two new GHAC marks, top­ ping the previous standard in both the junior boys' 50m freestyle and 50m breast­ stroke. Landry, in the unique po­ sition of teaching and coaching at both OT and Ab­ bey Park, said Chin has been a pleasant surprise. "He came in last year as an international student. He said "I swim a bit," in bro­ ken English. He just keeps improving. Every time in the pool he's doing best times." Chin broke the record of Iroquois Ridge's Sebastian Krewdel in the 50m free with a time of 26.36. He also broke the 11-year-old record in the 50m breaststroke stopping the clock in 34.75 seconds. Loyola's Kate Ivancic, a bronze medallist at OFSAA last year, took more than two seconds off her own GHAC record to win the open girls' 200m freestyle in 2:24.90. Ivancic also won the open girls' 100m freestyle in 1:05.96. Oakville had five more GHAC champions, includ­ ing Holy Trinity's Leah Creelman and Oakville Tra­ falgar's Ava Sergio, who fin­ ished in a dead heat at 1:15.81 in the senior girls' 100m indi­ vidual medley. White Oaks' Jacob Tam won the junior boys' 50m butterfly in a time of 30.14 seconds. He also qualified for OFSAA in the 50m free­ style. Tam also contributed to a pair of White Oaks relay victories. He was joined by Josh Hamilton, Edward Xu, and Jakub Przystupa on the 4x50m medley relay team that posted a time of 2:18.43. He teamed up with Hamil­ ton, Patrick Behan and Liam Popp to take first in the 4x50m freestyle relay to win in 1:59.12. Victoria Taylor of St. Thomas Aquinas won the junior girls' 100 IM (1:20.85) and also qualified with a second-place finish in the 50m backstroke. Also qualifying for OF­ SAA were: Oakville Trafalgar: Verth; Kyle Grabke; junior girls' 4x50m medley relay (Lauren Chan, Bel Zhao, Kristen Banks, Rianne Ag- buya); junior girls' 4x50m freestyle (Chan, Rachel Ali, Banks, Agbuya); senior boys' 4x50m medley relay (Grabke, Verth, Montague, Ayden Cauchi). Iroquois Ridge: Krewdel; Afzal Yousuf; Nadege Bam- fo; Mattie Duncan-Snobel; Mahima Bhatia; junior girls' 4x50 medley relay, 4x50m freestyle relay (Ma­ ria Apostolopoulos, Alana Bencich, Bamfo, Zoe Lin); open boys' 4x50m medley re­ lay (Krewdel, Yousuf, Alex Guta, Max Woo); open boys' 4x100m freestyle relay (Krewdel, Alim Pamir Gur- ler, Woo, Guta). White Oaks: Hamilton; open girls' 4x100 freestyle re­ lay (Ashley Ordinario, Don- alda Morris, Jessica Pinney, Jeannie Lam). Loyola: Victoria Perciv- al; Roberto Jerez; Timur De- vyatykh; Ethan Diana; se­ nior girls' 4x50m freestyle relay (Percival, Sara Reyes, Arissa Derakhshan, Ivan­ cic). T.A. Blakelock: Matthew Grouix; senior boys' 4x50m freestyle relay (Matthew Grouix, William Zhu, Kayne Boyall, Philip Le- wandowski). Abbey Park: Ben Curri­ er; junior girls' 4x50m free­ style relay (Breann Mak- arus, Heeya Song, Victoria Sibileau, Megan Robert­ son); senior boys' 4x50m freestyle relay (Currier, Mi­ chael Collins, Andrew Vu, Chin). mailto:hgarbutt@burlingtonpost.com McEachran sixth in Olympic slopestyle debut HIGH SCHOOL