Elisabeth Heslop
Local swimmer Donovan Taylor attended the 2009 Man./Sask. long course championships in Winnipeg over the weekend having been 15 years old for only two days.
For Taylor, that proved to be a significant challenge. Instead of being the among the oldest, and thus possibly the strongest and most experienced, in his age group, he suddenly was at the bottom—competing against swimmers with more years and experience than himself.
“I had to swim with the big dogs,” Taylor grinned.
Considering the challenges, Taylor’s mother and coach, Dawnn, said she is very pleased with his results.
“He had 10 swims and he medalled in five,” she noted.
Taylor took gold in the 50m butterfly, as well as bronze in the 100m butterfly, the 100m backstroke, the 200m IM, and the 400m IM—achieving personal best times in several of the races.
In fact, in the 200m butterfly, in which he placed fourth, Taylor shaved 12.5 seconds off his previous best.
Dawnn Taylor said capturing bronze in the two IM events was quite remarkable.
“I’d say the hardest event is the 400 IM,” she remarked. “Not only is it physically gruelling, but it is a very mental swim, too.”
In the IM, swimmers must use each of the four main strokes, which means they have to be sure they have perfected each one individually as well as be able to transition smoothly—and with technical correctness—between them.
Not an easy task.
“Going from butterfly to back you’re changing 180 degrees,” she noted.
Another challenge Taylor faced was the disparity in training hours between himself and the other swimmers.
“The guys in Winnipeg get to train for 25-35 hours a week,” his mother said. “It’s like a full-time job for them.
“In the last two weeks, [Donovan] got a maximum of seven-and-a-half hours per week.”
Since the pool here is only 25 metres in length, Taylor had to go across the river and train in the longer pool in International Falls.
The problem there is that the pool is in yards, not metres, which throws off timing and stroke count.
Despite all these challenges, Taylor is now ranked nationally in five events, which will be a help going into national championships in Montreal in two weeks.
As for what else his future holds, Taylor already has qualified to compete in next year’s Ontario provincial competition as a 16-year-old.
He also will be swimming in the Ontario Games and, most likely, at the national competition, which will be in Winnipeg next year.
For now, he is catching up on sleep from the middle-of-the-night trip back to Fort Frances from Winnipeg while preparing for a week of training in Thunder Bay before flying out to Montreal.
