Photo: Grande Prairie Piranhas

By Shane Clausing

historic weekend for piranhas

Grande Prairie Piranhas accomplish historic result at provincials championship

Mar 22, 2022 | 3:07 PM

Members of the Grande Prairie Piranhas Swim Club are celebrating what was a historic weekend at the Swim Alberta provincial championship in Edmonton.

After three days of provincial competition in various different events, the Piranhas finished the weekend in third place behind the Edmonton Keyano Swim Club and the University of Calgary Swim Club.

There were 22 members who competed in the competition and many were able to take home podium finishes and medals.

Piranhas Swim Club coach Alex Dawson says he’s extremely proud of the work by his team at the provincial championship.

“It was a historic weekend for us. It’s an individual-based competition, but with everybody competing there they get points scores along the way if they make the final,” he explained.

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“Over the weekend, over three and a half days of racing, they managed to finish in the top three for the first time ever. That was one of the only teams outside of Edmonton and Calgary to actually do that.”

To put the Piranha’s third place in perspective, Dawson says the previous best finish for the club was 10th place. He tells EverythingGP this finish came as a surprise to him.

“It’s been a progressive (improvement) over the years. We knew this was coming, but it was beyond expectation.”

Dawson feels they have been able to improve over the recent years thanks to the hard work of the athletes, coaches, board, parents, and the Eastlink Centre management for helping accommodate them, especially during the pandemic.

“It was a big team effort from everybody; from behind the scenes, right onto the deck, it wouldn’t happen without that kind of process,” he added.

The athletes that attended provincials were between the ages of 11-17.

Dawson hopes they can continue to build momentum heading into the summer.

“This was the spring championship and we’ll move off to the summer (provincials) in a couple of weeks,” he said.

“I’m off to the Canadian trials with a set of swimmers, then we are off to westerns and we’ll repeat the rest of that process again as we move towards summer provincials and the national championship.”