Eight self-motivated and disciplined Carleton Ravens swimmers and their coach made the long trek to Sudbury Feb. 9-11 to culminate six months of training this past year (in addition to previous years of training).
Each of the swimmers had a personal goal and sacrificed much time and money in order to compete with the best in the province from a total of 13 universities.
Alexie Khoury, MacKenzie Kimm, Allie Sheffield, Jacqueline Soicher, John Critch, Justin Kermot, Alex Natsvlichvili, and Andrew Vo have spent many mornings, starting at 6 a.m., many evenings, and most Saturdays, training for this important event, the highlight of the year for most university swimmers.
This sport includes not only time spent in the pool, but also weight training, and cross training to deal with the skills, and endurance necessary to compete at this level.
While articles about the Ontario University Athletics championships tend to focus on the team’s overall 11th or 12th place ranking, they neglect to recognize that swimming is a personal sport — each swimmer against the clock, and readers don’t get a sense of the personal best times these swimmers received. I would like the swimmers to be recognized for what they’ve accomplished.
These young people gave everything they had to do their best and indeed did succeed in facing the clock both as individuals and also in the relay events.
Congratulations to all and especially to graduating students, MacKenzie and Jacqueline, on a job well done.
