CALGARY – A deep and talented women's team along with a lean and agile men's squad will return to the varsity pool for the University of Calgary Dinos this weekend at the Kinsmen Centre in Edmonton for the 2012 Canada West swimming championships.

The Dinos swimmers again enter the season as defending national champions, but it has been a couple of years since they last had ultimate success at the conference level. The Calgary men last took home the Canada West title in 2010, while the lady Dinos grabbed it in 2009. In 2012, expect a two-horse race between the Dinos and perennial archrival UBC on the women's side, while the host Golden Bears have made quite the splash on the men's side and will also be in the running for the conference banner.

The Dinos and Thunderbirds have combined to win every Canada West swimming championship since the 1995-96 season, when UBC and Alberta shared the men's title.

It's an Olympic year, so both Dinos teams are missing marquee swimmers who are taking the year off school to focus on their training for London. Reigning CIS swimmer of the year Erica Morningstar is one of those athletes, leaving a large number of points for the rest of the women's team to make up – but a pair of new additions should help ease that burden with Amanda Reason and Lindsay Delmar set to make their varsity debuts.

Reason, a former world record holder, is an outstanding freestyler and breaststroker and should be a contender for both the conference and national rookie-of-the-year honours. She joined the Dinos out of the Etobicoke Swim Club.

Delmar is a top butterfly and middle-distance swimmer out of the University of Calgary Swim Club. The two join returning standouts Seanna Mitchell, Allison Long, Breanna Hendriks, and Fiona Doyle as gold medal threats in the Canada West pool. The Dinos women are three-time defending CIS champions and are ranked No. 1 heading into this week's conference meet.

“I think we have a pretty good roster, but again we'll be up against UBC because they're very deep as well,” said head coach Mike Blondal. “We have some strengths, certainly in the butterfly. We have strong breaststrokers and IM swimmers, but so does UBC. Our freestyle team is very strong, with Amanda Reason and Seanna Mitchell. We'll see how it plays out over the next week as we see those other teams, and then readjust our strategy as we head to Montreal.”

On the men's side two Dinos are absent as they prepare for London 2012: last year's Canada West outstanding swimmer David Dimitrov along with 2010 CIS rookie of the year Bogdan Knezevic. Dimitrov is attempting to qualify for the Bulgarian team, while Knezevic aims to swim at the Olympics for his native Serbia.

With those two out of action, Blondal will send just 12 swimmers into the pool at the Canada West event, with the hope of qualifying as many as possible to the CIS championship as the Dinos look to defend their two straight national titles. The team is led by breaststroker Jason Block, who has swept the events in his stroke at the CIS championships each of the past two seasons. Gleb Suvorov was the conference's top rookie in 2011 and is a strong backstroke and IM swimmer, while Michael Lowenstein joins Calgary after a stint at UNLV and is also a backstroker.

Rookies Bryan Wray and Andrew Makosiej will also be counted on to score points for the Dinos, while David Woodman returns to the lineup after he spent most of the 2010-11 season sidelined with an injury.

“We have a small men's team, and we lose maybe eight events without those two major guys (Dimitrov and Knezevic),” said Blondal. “The rest of the team is pretty strong, but it comes down to a numbers game. We'll know better this weekend after we see UBC's team. Alberta and Dalhousie are both seriously in the mix nationally, and I think it'll come down to who wins the most medals.”

Medallists from the Canada West championships along with all swimmers that meet the CIS time standards will qualify for the CIS championships in Montreal mid-February.

-UC-