Saskatoon Goldfins Spooktacular Invitational 2025
Saskatoon Goldfins Spooktacular Invitational 2025
Saskatoon, SK
October 24-26, 2025
(written by Coach Francois Coetzer)
Just over a week ago OSC sent 45 swimmers, 3 coaches and 4 chaperones to Saskatoon, SK for the Spooktacular Goldfins Invitational. This was a 3-day competition with heats and finals, and a chance for OSC swimmers to test their speed before going into the big training block of November.
The weekend was full of intense competition and OSC came home with over 200 best times, new qualifiers and a couple of meet records!
The first meet record was set by Gillian Archer in the 200m Breaststroke event going 2:36.68 beating out her teammate Layne Birbeck in the final who was the previous record holder. The second meet record came from Tao So in the 1500m Freestyle event going 18:49.61 winning the gold and bettering the record of teammate Emmitt Kingston who set the record two years ago. Congratulations to both Gill and Tao on some amazing finals swimming!
New OSC swimmers for the Swim Alberta Winter Championships roster are:
Lucas Badiu - 100 Back (1:07.16), 200 Back (2:25.34)
Seville Rockwell - 200 Breast (3:00.00)
Hudson Ironside - 200 Breast (2:58.87)
Varvara Varankina - 200IM (2:37.05)
Congratulations to our new Winter Champs qualifiers!
New OSC swimmers for the Swim Alberta Winter Trials roster are:
Jackson Bitea - 100 Back, 400 Free, 200 IM
Caleb Gunderson - 100 Back
Ivy Maguire - 50 Fly, 400 Free, 100 Fly
Isla Probert - 200 Back
Congratulations to our new Winter Trials qualifiers!
Finally, no swim meet is complete without some podiums and OSC brought home some amazing silverware! Congratulations to the following swimmers on their podium finishes!
Elsa Anderson: 2 Gold 2 Silver
Gillian Archer: 5 Gold 1 Bronze
Lucas Badiu: 1 Gold 1 Silver 3 Bronze
Layne Birbeck: 2 Silver 1 Bronze
Taylor Bitea: 1 Silver 3 Bronze
Evan Brake: 6 Silver
Caleb Gunderson: 1 Bronze
Hudson Ironside: 1 Bronze
Alex Kaulbach: 1 Silver 1 Bronze
Emmitt Kingston: 6 Gold 1 Bronze
Kobyn Kirchner: 1 Gold
Samuel Leyland: 5 Gold 1 Silver 1 Bronze
Alex Lim: 2 Gold 2 Silver 1 Bronze
Ivy Maguire: 1 Bronze
Claire Purves: 1 Silver 1 Bronze
Mackenna Riou: 2 Gold 6 Bronze
Seville Rockwell: 1 Bronze
Tao So: 3 Gold 4 Silver 2 Bronze
Owen Tchir: 2 Silver 2 Bronze
Varvara Varankine: 1 Bronze
Leo Wang: 1 Gold 2 Silver
Kathryn Woo: 1 Silver
Michael Woo: 1 Silver
Kendall Zaboroski: 3 Silver 2 Bronze
Congratulations to all our podium finishers! The coaches are very proud of you all!
Next up for most of these swimmers is the Cascade Speed Meet in Calgary (November 7 - 8) or the Candy Cane Invitational at the Kinsmen Sports Centre at the end of the month. Keep training hard swimmers and we look forward to seeing what you do next!