Lucas Punkari
It may have looked like an easy day in the pool for local teen Donovan Taylor as he medalled in all six of his events at the Eastern Canadian Tri Meet in Halifax on Saturday.
It was anything but easy for the 16-year-old, however, as he and the rest of the competitors taking part from Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces were run through the wringer there.
“It was brutal on not only the athletes, but on the coaches,” explained Dawnn Taylor, who travelled to Halifax to help coach Team Ontario.
“The kids did two drylands and two swims a day leading into the Saturday itself, and the metres that they swam in training were huge,” she noted.
“The whole purpose of the entire meet was to see how the swimmers preformed under stress, and the Ontario swimmers certainly did that as they pretty much dominated the competition,” Taylor added.
Donovan Taylor finished up with two first-place showings in the 200m I.M. and the 4x100m relay, in which he teamed up with Jeffrey Swanston, Sean Francis Domingo, and David Riley.
The Fort Frances Aquanaut also had two second-place showings (in the 100m butterfly and 200m backstroke), along with a pair of thirds in the 100m backstroke and the 200m butterfly.
“Donovan did really well in the morning sessions,” Dawnn Taylor said.
“But when the afternoon came around, the air had gone completely out of the balloon, both mentally and physically, in the 100m back and the 200m fly,” she remarked.
“He [Donovan] had to do something that he doesn’t do very often, and that was to totally re-evaluate why he was there and to get beyond that wall that he hit.
“Once he did that, he was back into ‘Donovan Mode’ before the 200 I.M.,” she added.
“And there was no way he was going to lose that race, especially since he wanted to keep his unbeaten streak in that race since February intact.”
Next up on the docket for local swimmer will be the May Invitational this coming weekend in Thunder Bay, where he’ll be competing on Saturday and Sunday only.
He withdrew from the 400m I.M. event on Friday night to allow him to get some rest.
Following that event will be a meet in Baltimore, Md. from June 10-13.
