The Sault Surge Aquatic Team travelled to Thunder Bay over the May 22 to 24 weekend to compete in the ABLE Energy Thunderbolts Grand Prix 2026 hosted by the Thunder Bay Thunderbolts at the Canada Games Sportsplex pool.
Over 400 athletes representing 13 clubs including three clubs from Minnesota and North Dakota were in attendance.
The Sault Surge athletes swam to a collective 234 personal best times. Each Surge athlete swam to multiple new personal best times while collecting a total of 76 medals.
The team’s total of 13 gold medals finished 3rd overall in the gold medal tally behind the host Thunderbolts with 55 and the Riptide swim club from Apple Valley Minnesota with 26.
The Surge scored a total of 2864 points finishing 3rd overall behind the Riptides with 4777 points and the Thunder Bay team with 4468.5 points. Both the Riptides and Thunderbolts team had over 70 swimmers giving the Sault Surge the edge in the overall best performing team banner for the highest average score per swimmer at the meet. A total of 20 swimmers won medals in individual events over the weekend.
Winning gold medals for the Surge Aquatic Team were Sophia Li,14, and Emma Vallee,14, with 6 each. Vallee earned the overall high point trophy for the girls 13-14 age group for her performance.
Blake Krivan,10, also earned high point trophies for his performance as well as highest scoring individual swim for his age group. Krivan picked up 3 gold medals and also set his first club record for his time in the 100m backstroke.
Asher Leask, 10, swam to gold 4 times and set club records in the 50m and 100m butterfly events.
Lenden Ellis, 15, Bo Mackay, 9, Sofia Naquitquitan, 9, each won gold medals in their respective age groups in an individual event.
Mackenna O’Leary, 15, Angela Thomson, 13, Giorgia Valle, 14, had strong individual performances, swimming to personal best times more than 10 times each.
The Sault Surge Aquatic Team continues to train as members of the team will be attending the regional B championships to be held in Timmins this upcoming weekend. The team will be racing at home June 6 at the John Rhodes community Centre pool in the 2nd annual black vs purple time trial. Andrew Li, Sophia Li and Emma Vallee have met the stringent standard to attend the upcoming Ontario Swimming Championships in Toronto in July.
