Olympic Trials

The other weekend I felt like a jet-setter, flying into Montreal with my oldest daughter Cadence, to watch Saturday night swimming finals at the Olympic Trials.  Because I wasn't able to take any time off work, flying there for the weekend was my only option and thanks to a flight credit from when my last flight home from Montreal was cancelled it was a more affordable option too.  Ever since a little buzz about Olympic Trials started at our swim club I thought about how fun it would be to watch some of the fastest swimming in our country and to be at an event that happens only every 4 years.
This may be as close to Olympic Trials I'll ever be, from a swimmers standpoint, but I can't help but think (hope?) that one day I might be there watching Cadence swimming... Could being this close to the action be the little inspiration to make Cadence want to be there herself/to get her really motivated?...
Once I decided we were going on this little mother-daughter bonding weekend, I asked Lisa if she wanted to go too with her daughter Sarah.  Sarah and Cadence are friends from swimming.  And Lisa and I have become friends as well.  Lisa was in fact Cadence's first coach and also who I trained under to be a coach last year. And they wanted to go for a little get-away too and we decided to share a hotel.   We had a plan for a fun filled, fast-swimming watching girls weekend.
Lisa in fact signed up to officiate at the meet and got a nice "officials" shirt souvenir out of it.  She was in the ready room where athletes do their final prep before racing, that would be pretty neat, but I was happy to take in the swimming live (they had the races on the TV in the room too and we occasionally saw Lisa peak her head out on deck).

First, I must mention the facility!  We could really benefit from something like this close to home, multi-pools, large seating area, deck space, oh my!  Making the comparison to our 6 lane, no scoreboard facility very sad!...I won't get into my feelings that Hamilton dropped the ball on getting some better facilities in conjunction with the PanAM games in 2015, but this solidified them!....  But the most striking part of the Montreal set-up was the "bus" to London that all those qualifying for the Olympic team signed, I thought it was an excellent idea!


We saw Joanne Malar, a multi-Olympian swimmer from Hamilton getting ready to do the tv broadcasting.  Cadence, Sarah, Rachael and I went down closer to the broadcast area.  She recognized us, my sister and her are the same age, and were good friends during their youthful days of swimming.  Joanne commented to her broadcast partner that Cadence was the "niece of her best friend from her youth".  She also said how much Cadence looked like the Price sisters and that seeing Cadence "brought her back to when she was 12 years old"  After the broadcast, she asked the girls to be in a picture with her... it was pretty cool for Cadence.

Next there was a parade of the 1980 boycotted Olympic team members.  Can you imagine what that would have been like to qualify and then have the games boycotted?  It was nice to honour them.

The singing of O'Canada, one of my favorite parts of big sporting events.  I sing!  I'm proud!

First event Men's 100 Fly.  One word: beautiful!  When it's done at this level by these guys it looks so incredible, maybe the fact that I think fly is a tough stroke makes it even more impressive to me.  Joe Bartoch, the Canadian record holder wins (in 53.01), and gets his spot on the Olympic team.  Interestingly Joe is from London, Ontario and at Cadence's Regional meet there last February, he was present for a few medal ceremonies, including giving Cadence one of her medals.



Next Women's 100 Free.  This and 800 Free were ones Cadence was looking forward to, being "her events".  Julia Wilkinson presents herself so well out of the water and although she had already made the Olympic team I was still happy she won (in 54.73).  But I was also hoping for Heather MacLean to make the team.  Heather's younger sister Brittany had already done so earlier in the week, thinking of my sister again after Joanne's comments about our young swimming days, I felt sentimentally hopeful for the family... but she came 3rd, not able to qualify for the individual event, so we waited and then the judge held up 4 fingers, indicating the relay team qualified, the top 4 (including Heather) were going to the Olympics!

Men's 200 Back was next, Tobias Oriwol won in 1:58.79 and is on the bus to London.  I might add he is nice on the eyes too.

Next was the event I was really looking forward to: 200 Breast, because it is one of my favorite events to do.  It hurts but I'm reasonable successful at breaststoke (for my level).  But at Olympic Trials it also became one of my favorite events to watch as well.  It's the best stroke to cheer for/be cheered for in, matching cheers with breaths... Martha McCabe had the early lead and was still leading at the 150 mark... but with 25m left Tera Van Beilen (who happens to be from a local club OAK) starts enclosing on Martha and then passes her to finish 1st in a time of 2:24.03.  Martha 2nd, swam fast enough to make the Olympic standard time and hence the Olympic team.  In fact top 4 girls had the qualifying time, but only the top 2 go.  Pretty incredible; in many other events the 2nd place swimmer doesn't make the team because they don't make the time standard, but in this race 4 made the time, that's some fast swimming!!  In fact they announced that Tera and Martha had just swum the 2nd and 3rd fastest times in the world this year.  All my jumping and screaming, that made all the difference I think (lol)

Last but not least - Women's 800 free.  Adding to the excitement in the race was Bridget Coley, from Hamilton Aquatic Club (our club) swimming in lane 6 (seated 5th)  This was an exciting race too, Bridget was swapping places with 5th and 6th for the 1st half.  Then she started to pull away from 6th and had a solid hold on 5th, but that wasn't all, she was catching 4th and that's where she finished in 4th place, in a new HAC record of 8:43.47.  Savannah King was 1st in 8:30.79 and Alexa Komarnycky also made the Olympic team.  This race, sitting by Bridget's parents in the stands, who seemed quite calm, made me realize what a mess I'd be if Cadence is ever at this level.  I honestly don't think I could handle it, I'd be going crazy! (but since the road to crazy is short for me, I won't stop her for going for it if she chooses to)...