Dan Falloon
Donovan Taylor and Levi Rittau will be making their way to Laurentian University in Sudbury this summer.
The two Fort Frances Aquanauts swimmers won’t be taking any classes there, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be learning.
Taylor, 15, and Rittau, 13, were named to the Northwestern Ontario swimming team that will compete at the Ontario Summer Games on Aug. 11-13.
The announcement caps an encouraging season in the pool for Taylor, who brought home medals from many events—despite moving up to the highly-competitive 15-and-over age division.
He’s already seemed to capture the essence of the stereotypical college mischief-making. He and fellow swimmers from Kenora, Dryden, and Thunder Bay go back a number of years, so the competition—and travel time—will be a reunion of sorts.
“It was pretty awesome [being named]. It’s going to be fun,” enthused Taylor, who is ranked ninth nationally in the 400m I.M. and is in the top-15 in four other categories.
“It’s going to be exciting to have all the guys go out there because we all know each other,” he added.
“I feel sorry for the bus driver. It’s going to be pretty hectic.”
But once he gets to the pool, it’s going to be all business for Taylor, who will be attending his first Ontario Summer Games but still expects to see a number of familiar faces from other provincial competitions.
“It’s my first time going out there, so there’s not really much expectation,” he remarked.
“Most of the guys I know that are going to Summer Games are pretty stiff competition,” he explained. “They’re coming from Toronto and they’ll be the big players out there.
“Most of the southern Ontario kids are going to come up.”
Taylor said he keeps tabs on those swimmers, and expects they do the same to him, so there shouldn’t be too many surprises in Sudbury.
Aquanauts’ coach Dawnn Taylor, Donovan’s mother and one of two Northwestern Ontario coaches going to Sudbury, noted her son won’t have much time off until after the Summer Games because the Canadian Age Group Championships are slated July 21-26 in Winnipeg.
But she said even though nationals come before the Summer Games, she doesn’t expect a letdown in intensity.
“There’s probably more tight competition between the guys in Ontario because they all like each other, but it’s a grudge match,” she laughed.
“Whereas nationals, some of them you may not know so well.
“You don’t know what kind of trash talk you’re going to get,” she kidded. “The known is probably more scary than the unknown.”
However, the Summer Games could provide a good chance for the teen to get right back in the pool if the nationals end up being a little bit of a rough ride because a familiar pool disadvantage crept in.
“In all honesty, if you didn’t swim very well at nationals, Ontario Summer Games is going to be fantastic,” Dawnn Taylor stressed.
“Sometimes, being that close to the Winnipeg pool [Pan Am Pool], it’s like being at home,” she explained. “It’s that familiarity, and sometimes that doesn’t bring good performances.
“It’s still nice to be out of your element.”
Rittau, meanwhile, also will be attending his first Ontario Summer Games. Dawnn Taylor credited him with maturing quickly, which has allowed him to speed up his development.
“Levi’s come along really well,” she lauded. “He’s a lot more competitive, he’s a lot tougher.”
Rittau, who placed second in his age group at the Aquanauts’ home meet back in February, now is responsible for keeping an eye on his times in addition to competing in the pool.
“Now we’re making sure we’re stressing time management, as far as making sure you look at the clock, and getting yourself to time your set times,” Dawnn Taylor noted.
“He’s young to be doing all that, but he’s doing a really good job.”
Rittau, who has been swimming for seven years, is pumped for the Summer Games and relishing the opportunity to face top-notch competition.
He feels his strongest event is the freestyle, and he’s still working to improve his other strokes.
“I’m fast [in that event],” said Rittau. “That’s my best stroke.”
His favourite part about swimming is that there is so much variety in competitions, with different strokes and different distances to swim.
He also takes pride in pushing himself to set personal bests.
Dawnn Taylor conceded potential burnout is an issue with all of her swimmers, so she’s trying to bring focus on the mental aspect of swimming in addition to the physical part.
“This is one of those sports that is not just physical,” she stressed. “You can go out there and be the best swimmer in the world, but if your mind’s not into it, you aren’t any better than me, which isn’t great.
“We don’t want any burnout, we want to be in it for the long-term.”
For Donovan Taylor, this season has been an adjustment given he moved up an age category.
“This year’s probably been the stiffest competition because I moved up in age group,” he explained. “I’m 15-and-over now, so it’s all the big boys, basically.
“It’s just basically a larger group we’re competing against.”
He said there aren’t just more swimmers, but better swimmers, making his glowing results in younger age groups harder to duplicate.
“We’re all moving up, and once you start moving up there, it’s higher times you need and a lot more competition, and that’s about it,” he reasoned.
That current competition includes university-level swimmers as Taylor matched up against competitors from the University of Manitoba at the Golden Plains Invitational in Winnipeg two weeks ago.
He still emerged with medals in five of nine events.
“It’s been pretty tough and a little nerve-wracking,” he acknowledged. “The Manitoba boys are starting to become some real stiff competition.
“Those Manitoba guys are getting a lot of hours in.”
The field doesn’t look to lighten up in the years ahead, either, as there can be young phenoms in younger age groups just waiting to break into the 15-and-over division.
“You’re always watching your back for the little guys that come out of the bush,” Taylor noted.
“You always have the ones that are the year before you, and you’ve got to watch out because they’re coming up behind you, so you’re always got to look in front of you and behind you.”
Dawnn Taylor said her son is entering the ideal time to lock into his strokes as he should be just about finished any significant growth spurts.
“We’ve changed some things in his stroke, and that’s because his potential height velocity, we hope, has slowed down to the point where he’s not going to grow a whole lot anymore,” she noted.
“You can ask the body to do stronger things when it comes to the stroke. We’re asking for a lot more powerful stroke.
“Our goal has been to get him to peak at nationals,” she added. “So the last couple meets we’ve been changing a few things, changing some turns and evaluating a few things and trying a few new techniques.
“In the last meet in Winnipeg, we found one that really didn’t work and one that really did.
“[We want to] get all the bugs out now, and then that month before nationals, we’ll work on everything that works, make it strong, and see what happens,” she concluded.
