The Fort Frances Aquanauts hit a bump in the road at the Northwestern Ontario Open over the weekend in Kenora.
After posting a bevy of personal best times at meets all winter, the Aquanauts were forced to endure a weekend in which consistency was difficult to achieve.
“There seemed to be a lot of fatigue that carried over from the past couple of weeks where the pool [at the Memorial Sports Centre] was very warm,” Aquanauts head coach Tristan Hutton remarked.
“A lot of the kids were starting their events strong and then really dying, more than just the usual fatigue, at the end of the races,” he noted.
“When the pool goes up to close to 31 degrees C for a couple of days, that really drains the swimmers,” Hutton added. “They need a lot of coaxing to get their energy back up and that only goes so far.”
Whether it was the warm pool conditions during practice or a plethora of commitments outside of the pool, the Aquanauts could not reach their usual lofty standards.
Case in point, Paralympic hopeful Alex Parent. The Aquanaut standout struggled during the opening day of the competition but then rebounded on the second day with a strong showing.
“Alex had a very bad day on Saturday,” Hutton remarked. “He was sluggish and he added time on every event he entered.
“But on Sunday, for some reason, it was just a total turnaround and that’s why it was a little bit hard for me to see what was going on.
“He [Parent] took two seconds off in his 50m backstroke, two seconds off in his 50m butterfly, and one second off in his 100m freestyle, so those are very good times that will bring him a lot of points,” Hutton added.
Parent wasn’t the only swimmer struggling to find consistency. Jillian Gustafson and Krista Emond saw dramatic improvement in some events but struggled mightily in others.
“Jillian and Krista had a couple of events where they shaved 10 seconds off and then completely bombed in other events,” Hutton noted.
“It’s important to note that when you take 10 seconds off in an event, it’s pretty good.
“I look at it like I was able to get them geared up for that event and then they were just tired and couldn’t perform.”
Despite what best can be described as erratic results, Hutton was pleased with the team’s overall showing and vowed to make adjustments to their training regimen in order to re-discover the form that had made the club so successful early in the year.
“I got about a 40 percent improvement rate, which means everybody, with the exception of one swimmer, improved in at least one event,” he enthused.
“Meets like this are beacons,” he added. “They kind of let us know where we’re at and it gives us an idea of what we have to do for the next couple of weeks.
“We have the Division III championships which are in Thunder Bay in three weeks [April 20-22] and this let’s me know what kind of work we’ll need to be concentrating on to get the kids prepared so that our swim team can shine.”
Here are the Aquanauts’ results from the Northwestern Ontario Open:
•Anika Beaudry (seven)—50m free (1:16.47, 32nd), 100m free (2:52.75, 25th), 50m back (1:17.91, 27th), 50m breast (1:28.89, 9th), fly (46.37, 21st), and 100m I.M. (3:08.55, 24th);
•Andre Emond (12)—100m free (1:21.43, 6th), 200m freestyle (2:56.23, 46th), 400m freestyle (5:52.56, 2nd), 50m back (41.81, 24th), 100m back (1:29.17, 39th), 50m breast (54.30, 46th), 50m fly (44.23, 3rd), and 200m I.M. (3:16.56, 3rd);
•Krista Emond (13)—100m freestyle (1:13.89, 9th), 200m freestyle (2:37.96, 23rd), 400m freestyle (5:38.50, 7th), 100m back (1:25.71, 29th), 200m back (2:58.71, 21st), 50m breast (47.23, 24th), 50m fly (41.58, 5th), and 200m I.M. (3:06.90, 8th);
•Jillian Gustafson (12)—200m free (2:45.09, 33rd), 400m free (5:52.99, 7th), 100m back (1:26.34, 30th), 200m back (3:00.31, 22nd), 50m breast (45.03, 17th), 100m breast (1:39.23, 29th), 50m fly (42.68, 7th), and 200 I.M. (3:00.98, 5th);
•Michael Albanese-Higgins (nine)—50m freestyle (1:07.43, 25th), 100m free (2:28.09, 19th), 50m back (1:13.14, 23rd), 50m breast (1:32.49, 2nd), 25m fly (32.79, 7th), and 100m I.M. (2:53.93, 21st);
•Jessica Lowey (13)—50m free (34.67, 31st), 100m free (1:12.80, 7th), 50m back (39.14, 16th), 100m back (1:25.36, 28th), 50m breast (41.45, 8th), 100m breast (1:29.49, 10th), 200m breast (3:16.41, 13th), and 200m I.M. (3:02.37, 7th);
•Kaela Lowey (12)—50m free (39.23, 53rd), 100m free (1:27.18, 18th), 50m back (45.39, 30th), 100m back (1:37.50, 56th), 50m breast (45.97, 20th), 100m breast (1:40.54, 31st), 200m breast (3:34.23, 26th), and 200m I.M. (3:26.80, 16th);
•Nichole Lowey (16)—50m free (31.54, 13th), 50m back (38.03, 10th), 100m back (1:21.49, 20th), 50m breast (37.93, 2nd), 100m breast (1:21.74, 5th), 200m breast (2:57.84, 5th), 50m fly (37.13, 3rd), and 200m I.M. (2:48.91, 4th);
•Alex Parent (17)—100m free (1:00.45, 2nd), 200m free (2:14.17, 2nd), 50m back (33.78, 3rd), 100m back (1:10.70, 3rd), 50m breast (40.51, 5th), and 50m fly (31.59, 2nd);
•Caitlin Sande (13)—100m free (1:12.83, 8th), 200m free (2:40.30, 25th), 400m free (5:39.13, 8th), 50m back (40.35, 21st), 50m breast (51.72, 40th), 50m fly (38.06, 1st), 100m fly (1:29.29, 16th), and 200 I.M. (3:08.36, 10th); and
•Katja Sutherland (11)—200m free (3:02.13, 55th), 400m free (7:21.12), 800m free (14:25.27, 5th), 100m back (1:36.63, 54th), 50m breast (53.26, 45th), 100m breast (1:42.48, 34th), 50m fly (48.27, 12th), and 200m I.M. (3:29.64, 17th)
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