Lucas Punkari
Four members of the Fort Frances Aquanauts swim team made the trek to Winnipeg over the weekend for the 2012 Manitoba/Saskatchewan short course championships, with 17-year-old Donovan Taylor leading the way.
Taylor, who had to drop three of his events due to the ’flu, finished in first place in the 16-and-over 200m individual medley with a time of 2:08.34.
He also came second in the 100m backstroke and finished third in the 50m butterfly.
“Despite having the ’flu, he was still able to bring home three medals, which was really good,” noted Aquanauts’ head coach Dawnn Taylor.
That event also was the last for Taylor before he travels to Montreal on Sunday, where he’ll be competing in the Canadian Olympic swim trials starting next Tuesday.
“It’s a completely different type of event than anything we’ve been to before,” Dawnn Taylor noted.
“You have to go through the drug testing and all of those sorts of things before you go out there, and it is the big time when it comes to meets,” she explained.
“We’re hoping to make it a second swim, which would be fantastic.
“But just to be able to be there and know that you are in that elite group of athletes, especially at 17 years old, is quite amazing,” she added.
Also making finals at the Man./Sask. meet were Levi Rittau, whose best finish was fourth in the 15-year-old boys’ 50m butterfly, and Regan Danylchuk, whose highest result was a fifth place in the girls’ 13-year-old 100m freestyle.
Rounding out the Aquanauts’ contingent in Winnipeg was 13-year-old Lyndsi Jo Wilson, who had three 13th-place finishes in the girls’ 50m, 100m, and 200m backstroke races.
“I think the biggest thing that they can take away from this event is race strategy,” Dawnn Taylor noted.
“The times are good, but now we just need to make sure that they pace themselves out.
“You can’t win a race by going all out right at the start and expect to have something at the end of the race,” she stressed.
Rittau, Danylchuk, and Wilson all will return to action April 13-15 in Kenora, where they’ll be competing in the Northwestern Ontario Open.
