The University of Victoria's connection to four swimming medals from the 2012 London Summer Olympics and Paralympics will be highlighted this morning with the choice of Swimming Canada CEO Pierre Lafontaine as feature speaker for the fifth-annual UVic Champions Breakfast.
Ryan Cochrane, silver medallist in the 1,500 metres at the London Games, and Richard Weinberger, open-water 10K bronze medallist, are UVic students. So is Brianna Nelson, double silver medallist from the London Paralympics.
The breakfast is one of the most notably successful sports fundraisers on the Island. The event is again sold out at McKinnon Gym at $200 per ticket with 1,400 tickets sold.
UVic administration matches ticket-sale revenue up to $150,000. Last year's breakfast raised $410,000 with all of the money going to scholarships for UVic student athletes. Nearly $2 million has been raised for UVic athletic scholarships in five years.
"The response in the community to the event has been extraordinary," said Clint Hamilton, UVic director of athletics and recreation.
Former featured speakers have included 2008 Beijing Olympic gold-medallist rower Adam Kreek in 2011, Uvic grad and Paralympics multi-medallist swimmer Stephanie Dixon in 2010, Vancouver Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi in 2009 and former UVic basketball player and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment broadcast administrator Chris Hebb in 2008.
Hamilton appears to have struck the right note again this year.
"Six Vikes students or alumni - four rowers [Gabe Bergen, Doug Cisma, Rachelle Viinberg and Darcy Marquardt] and two swimmers - graced the podium this year at the 2012 London Summer Olympics," he noted.
"And Pierre [Lafontaine] is a very dynamic speaker."
You'll get no argument from Canadian Olympic swimming team head coach Randy Bennett of Victoria.
"Pierre is passionate about swimming and has done a great job in raising the profile of the sport in Canada through things such as getting the national Olympic trials televised nationally," noted Bennett
Cochrane won Canada's lone Olympic swimming medal in Beijing in 2008, but it was the first for the country since Sydney 2000. That increased to three swimming medals at London 2012 with Cochrane, Weinberger and Misson's Brent Hayden.
"Pierre has got Canadian swimming moving in the right direction," said Bennett.
Right back at you, said Lafontaine, as he prepared Monday to fly out from Ottawa.
"It comes down to the coaches such as Randy [Bennett]," said Lafontaine.
"We set the field for them and they do the rest through our [national training centres]. Canadian universities also have a role to play in offering world-class programs, such as the combination on the Island of the Victoria national training centre and UVic, so our swimmers don't have to go to the U.S. It's a family here."
Other on hand today will be UVic Vikes coaching legend Ken Shields, assistant coach for the host British women's hoops team at the London Olympics, Weinberger's Olympic coach Ron Jacks and UVic grad and London Games fencer Monica Peterson.
