Lucas Punkari
The Fort Frances Aquanauts returned to the pool over the weekend at the Northwestern Ontario regional championships in Thunder Bay, where a number of swimmers turned in top-notch performances.
“They all did very well and they really came together as a team,” lauded coach Dawnn Taylor.
“We had 20 swimmers competing over the weekend and everybody participated in eight swims each,” she noted.
“And out of all of those, we only had one disqualification, which was fantastic to see.”
Leading the way for the Aquanauts were Donovan Taylor and Adam Stromberg, who captured their respective age group titles in the boys’ 15-and-over and 13-14 divisions, respectively.
Stromberg also earned his first age group national qualifying time—2:10.01—in the 200m freestyle event.
“Of course, he did that in an event that isn’t one of his key races,” Dawnn Taylor laughed.
“Now Adam will be going to the age group nationals in Calgary this July, which will take place right after the senior nationals in Edmonton that Donovan will be competing in, so we’ll just swing down there right after,” she remarked.
Taylor, however, thought the strongest swims of the weekend came from Lyndsi Jo Wilson, who nabbed a number of fifth-place finishes in the girls’ 13-14 age group.
“All but one of her swims turned out to be a personal best time, and she smashed a ton of time off of those previous swims,” Taylor noted.
“One of the things that we had talked about during the weekend was about having some really good strategic swims and making sure that our swimmers paced themselves,” she added.
“And while that might not be reflected with medals, Lindsay really used that to her advantage.”
In addition to the national qualifying time for Stromberg, the 200m freestyle event also saw a strong showing from Abigail Douglas, who smashed nearly 14 seconds off her seed time with a swim of 3:28.43.
“We’re looking at training her, along with Nicole Wilson, for more of the mid-distance swims such as the 400 freestyle for next year, so that will be really neat to see how they perform going forward,” Taylor said.
Next up is the Western Canadian Championships on Feb. 15-19 in Winnipeg, where Donovan Taylor will be competing.
He and Stromberg then will head to Nepean (outside Ottawa) for the Ontario championships from March 1-4.
