U SPORTS RECAP: Lemesle golden on opening day

The Gee-Gees had a great showing on the opening day of the 2024 U SPORTS National Championship in Pointe-Claire, QC on Thursday.

22 Gee-Gees will compete over the three days of competition in Pointe-Claire following an impressive RSEQ championship resulting in 24 individual and eight relay medals.  

Both the morning and evening sessions were filled with great swims, but the highlight of the evening was a gold medal finish for Hugo Lemesle. With a time of 1:02.82 in the 100m Breaststroke, Lemesle captured his first U SPORTS gold, and fourth U SPORTS medal overall.

"It feels really good to get my first ever gold at U SPORTS. It was a good race, it was mentally hard, but I am happy with the way it ended," Lemesle said. "I didn't make the same mistakes I made my previous years."

"It's a reward for the hard work that Hugo puts in and his teammates that train with him put in," Ottawa head coach, Dave Heinbuch said.

Rookie Gee-Gee, Alym Kurji reached an A-final in his first U SPORTS competition, swimming a time of 26.89 in the 50m backstroke.

Later in the evening, Kurji joined Evan Aguiar-Winter, Ethan Fast, and Noah Wagner for a fifth-place finish in the 4x100m freestyle relay (3:27.15).

Day two of competition features a great list of events for the Gee-Gees squad including the 4x200m freestyle relays.

"Tomorrow is a better day for us, better events, especially for our women's team," Heinbuch said. "Our job as coaches is to get them fired up and I'm pretty confident about it."

For full results and heat sheets for the championship, click HERE. Preliminaries and finals will be streaming live on CBC Gem and the CBC Sports' YouTube channel.