Winter Festivals 2025
EVENT: Winter Festivals 2025
DATES: January 25-26th, 2025
LOCATION: Calgary, Alberta
# of teams: 29 teams
# of AMAC swimmers racing: 6 AMAC qualified swimmers
Next meet: Edmonton Open Provincial Series on Jan 31- Feb 2 in Edmonton
Coaches Shout Out:
Swim Alberta Winter Festivals: A huge congratulations to all 6 of our swimmers for representing AMAC so well at the 12&under provincial level at Winter Festivals in Edmonton over the weekend! Seeing the athletes make lasting friendships, have fun on deck, cheer each other on, and race FAST made this weekend a huge success!
Swim Meet Awards:
Swim of the Meet: The Swim of the Meet award goes to Olivia McWilliams for her stellar performance in her 100m freestyle on Sunday. Olivia went into this race with a positive attitude, knowledge of what she needed to improve on with her technique to have a good race, and excitement to swim FAST. Olivia went out her first 50 faster than her 50m freestyle time and was able to push hard on the second half of the race while maintaining good technique, dropping nearly 8 seconds from her previous best time! This was such a great swim to watch as a coach knowing Olivia’s goals and how much work she has put in to make this an awesome race! Very well done, Olivia!
Heart and Hustle: The Heart and Hustle award goes to Rixtonn Biffart! Rixtonn was able to snag a place in finals for three events total, one on Saturday in the 100m IM and two on Sunday for the 50m fly and 100m freestyle. Throughout the three-day meet, Rix worked extremely hard to take on feedback from Coach Lauren and improve on his swims before he even knew he would be able to race some of them again! Showing his dedication to improvement, each one of his second swims was at or under best time and he was able to move up his ranking in the top 8 from each second swim! Rixtonn had lots of fantastic events but his heart and hustle to improve between prelims and finals was exceptional and showed in his results from the meet. Congrats, Rixtonn!
Rixtonn Biffart (10) 6 new best times
31st 400 Free Timed Final
10th 50 Free Prelims
13th 50 Breast Prelims
8th 100 IM Prelims
7th 100 IM Finals
14th 200 Free Relay
6th 50 Fly Prelims
4th 50 Fly Finals
7th 100 Free Prelims
6th 100 Free Finals
34th 200 IM Timed Final
Carleigh Gainsborough (11) 5 new best times
24th 200 Breast Timed Final
27th 400 Free Timed Final
29th 50 Free Prelims
18th 50 Breast Prelims
23rd 100 IM Prelims
33rd 50 Back Prelims
23rd 100 Breast Prelims
30th 100 Free Prelims
14th 200 Medley Relay
Isabela Josey (11) 5 new best times
22nd 200 Breast Timed Final
38th 400 Free Timed Final
27th 50 Free Prelims
14th 50 Breast Prelims
14th 200 Free Relay
14th 200 Free Prelims
35th 50 Back Prelims
26th 100 Breast Prelims
36th 100 Free Prelims
14th 200 Medley Relay
Olivia McWilliams (11) 4 new best times
16th 200 Back Timed Final
26th 400 Free Timed Final
30th 50 Free Prelims
22nd 100 Back Prelims
14th 200 Free Relay
28th 200 Free Timed Final
26th 50 Back Prelims
23rd 100 Free Prelims
14th 200 Medley Relay
26th 200 IM Timed Final
Ryes Pattison (11) 3 new best times
42nd 200 Back Timed Final
32nd 200 Breast Timed Final
22nd 50 Breast Prelims
27th 100 IM Prelims
14th 200 Free Relay
41st 200 Free Timed Final
19th 100 Breast Prelims
31st 50 Fly Prelims
43rd 200 IM Timed Final
Marsha Van Der Merwe (10) 5 new best times
37th 200 Breast Timed Final
15th 100 Fly Prelims
10th 50 Breast Prelims
19th 100 IM Prelims
18th 100 Breast Prelims
20th 50 Fly Prelims
14th 200 Medley Relay
36th 200 IM Timed Final
