The Dalhousie Tigers - Dalhousie University

A competitive swimmer with the Halifax Trojans until the age of 14, Chris Stewart took a hiatus from the pool and focused on other sports like volleyball and basketball during his time at Queen Elizabeth High School. It wasn’t until his freshman year at UNB when he popped by their pool that he felt the pull of the water again. He began regular work outs and was soon training with former Dal swimmer Andrew Cole who was coaching the UNB team at the time. 

After training with the Trojans in the summer of 1997, Chris showed up at Dalhousie that September, eight years since he’d swam competitively, to try out for the Tigers squad. Not only did he make the team, he swept the breaststroke events, earning three gold medals at the AUAA conference championships. He followed it up by setting a new conference record in the 50m breaststroke with a sixth-place finish at the CIAU championships the following weekend. He earned conference rookie of the year honours for his efforts in his inaugural season. 

In his second year, Chris continued to dominate the breaststroke events. He set new Dalhousie and AUAA records in the 50m and 100m breaststroke events that year and won both events in addition to the 200m IM at the AUAA championships, earning conference all-star status in the process. Chris went on to place sixth in the 50m breaststroke and seventh in the 100m breaststroke at the national championships, smashing the records he had set earlier in the year. Chris earned team MVP honours for the first time in his career while leading the Tigers to their first AUAA championship win of their current 21-year win streak. 

Chris achieved a tremendous amount of success in his third season. He led the Tigers to their second-consecutive conference championship with a gold medal sweep of all three breaststroke events and the 200m IM. The AUAA MVP set a new conference record with the second fastest time in the preliminary round of the 100m breaststroke at the national championships but was later disqualified for a turn infraction on the first day of competition. After a disappointing first day, he came back to the pool with a new found determination, earning a silver medal in the 200m breaststroke, swimming two seconds faster than he ever had before in that event. On the third and final day of the championships, he swam to a gold medal in the 50m breaststroke, setting yet another AUAA record while earning Dalhousie’s first gold medal in swimming since 1985. After a spectacular season, Chris was named the Climo Award winner as Dalhousie’s male athlete of the year. 

The 2000-01 season was another one for the record books for Chris. In addition to winning all three breaststroke events at the conference championships, he won a fourth gold medal in the 50m freestyle to claim conference swimmer of the year honours for the second-straight season. At the CIAU championship the following week, he doubled his national medal count to earn silver in the 50m breaststroke and set a new AUS record with a bronze in the 100m breaststroke. 

Chris earned his degree that spring and trained with Cole at the National Swim Centre, Atlantic for a year before returning to Dalhousie for his fifth and final year in the 2002-03 season. He swept the breaststroke events yet again at the conference championships and added three relay wins as well. He went on to earn his fifth and final national medal, a bronze, as a member of the 4x100m relay team.

Nigel Kemp, Chris’ coach in his first year with the Tigers, saw a lot of potential in him when he first showed up that September. “I found Chris to be somewhat of a diamond in the rough when he chose to get back into competitive swimming at Dalhousie in 1997. At the outset he was a very sprint-oriented athlete with a modest age group background. To his credit he recognized not only the talent he had but also his evolving capacity to significantly contribute to his team as both a freestyle and breaststroke swimmer. His open mindedness in undertaking the challenge of becoming a middle distance, as well as a sprint swimmer, particularly in the most complex of swimming strokes - breaststroke, reflected his appreciation that varsity swimming, with individual and relay events, was very much a team sport. This was an important catalyst and component of his continued development as a competitive swimmer.”

In his five years at Dal, Chris collected five CIAU medals, 18 individual and seven relay conference championship wins and four conference championship banners. A five-time conference all-star, he set and reset five AUAA/AUS records, eight Dalhousie records and eight Nova Scotia records between 1999 and 2003. He also competed at both the 2000 and 2004 Canadian Olympic trials and swam on the World Cup circuit. 

He remained connected to swimming after graduation, working with Commonwealth Games Canada and moved to Barbados to establish the first-ever para-swimming program in the Caribbean country.