Dalhousie Tigers’ fifth year swimmer, Gavin Dyke is entering the final lap of his university athletics career.
Dyke has had quite the impressive swimming career at Dal and he’s been crucial to the success of the men’s swimming program. Some of his personal accomplishments as a Tiger include breaking a 24-year old record in the 200-metre freestyle with a time of 1:49.27 at the Dave Mills Invitational in 2016 and being named AUS Swimmer of the Year for two consecutive seasons in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017.
He’s won the AUS championship in all of his three completed seasons with Dal.
“It’s great to surround myself with swimmers who are working hard towards a common goal. It pushes me to work hard and to become a better swimmer,” says Dyke.
Dyke hails from Mount Pearl, Newfoundland; he originally started off his swimming career at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Despite the tremendous success in his rookie season with the Sea-Hawks, Dyke transferred to Dal due to a coaching change.
During the coaching change, Dyke reached out to Lance Cansdale, the head swim coach at Dal and Cansdale invited Dyke to swim with the Dal team. During the summer of 2014, Dyke began training with Cansdale and he became confident that the swim program at Dal would gear him towards success with the coaching staff, facilities, and training partners.
Dyke credits Cansdale and the swim team for his success.
“Lance has been incredible. He’s great in and out of the pool. Whenever I need motivation or someone to talk to, he’s there for me. It’s more than what I can ask for,” says Dyke.
Last season, Dyke earned a medal in all 14 races he entered, and captured gold in 10 of them.
During the AUS championships, Dyke won AUS gold in the 200-metre and 400-metre freestyle events and silver in the 100-metre freestyle and butterfly events. He is also the AUS record holder in both the 100-metre and 200-metre freestyle.
He’s on pace to continue his dominance because he has won every race so far this season.
Reflecting on his time at Dal, Dyke hopes to end his phenomenal swimming career with AUS wins in the freestyle events and place top eight at U Sports national championships.
Dyke says some of greatest accomplishments as a Tiger was breaking the 200-metre record and setting an AUS record in the 400-metre medley relay in 2016 at the Kemp-Fry Invitational.
He’s qualified for nationals in all his seasons at Dal. Acadia has been a strong competitor this season, but Dyke is confident that the Tigers will capture the AUS title.
“Acadia has an extra two or three swimmers up on us and they are obviously looking to get the AUS title. But we’ve talked about it and we feel pretty confident that if we put the work in we can come up on top.”
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