Print Story - canada.com network Page 1 of 1 Friday » August 3 » 2007 Several Vikes chase Universiade medals Cleve Dheensaw Times Colonist Friday, August 03, 2007 Murray Head once sang about One Night in Bangkok, which was actually a song about the world chess championships. Seven UVic athletes will get more than that -- about 10 nights in Bangkok -- at the XXIV World University Games which begin Wednesday and run through Aug. 18 in the bustling Thai metropolis. The World University Games, or Universiade as they are also known, have served as a launching pad for numerous future Olympians and world championships performers. One of the UVic Vikes athletes headed to Bangkok has already been -- hard-working swimmer MacKenzie Downing has been a revelation in earning a spot on Team Canada to the 2007 world aquatics championships earlier this year in Melbourne and could be tabbed for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics after winning four gold medals last weekend at the Canadian senior swimming championships in Calgary. Another Vikes athlete headed to Bangkok and touted as a potential future Olympian is 1,500-metre runner Geoff Martinson out of Prince George. The Vikes women's soccer team achieved its greatest success with high-scoring strikers Carey Gustafson and Liz Hansen, including winning the CIS national title in 2005, and the pair will fuel the Canadian offence on the pitch at Bangkok. The UVic golf team has placed the most Vikes athletes on the Canadian team to Thailand with Christina Spence of Port Alberni, Jade Dennill of Nakusp and Anne Balser from Nova Scotia. One Vikes coach has been named to the Games team as Peter Vizsolyi will help guide the Canadian swimmers in Thailand. Willie Galick of Nanaimo, who will play his final two seasons of NCAA hoops at Cal State- Northridge after transferring from Pepperdine, is on the Canadian men's basketball team headed to Bangkok. It was in men's basketball that UVic and Canada both recorded their most memorable moment at a Universiade when Vikes stars Eli Pasquale, Gerald Kazanowski, both two-time future Olympians, and Kelly Dukeshire stunned the Charles Barkley-led U.S. team to win gold at the 1983 Edmonton World University Games. © Times Colonist (Victoria) 2007 Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved. http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=160ddcf8-6409-4d93-bba7-decdae8777d1 8/3/2007.