As several swim athletes gear up to head to the Western and National championships in the coming weeks, Nose Creek Swim Association (NCSA) is looking back at a short course season.
NCSA took a team of 32 swimmers to the Alberta Provincial Trials in Edmonton at the start of March, where 18 swimmers qualified for the Alberta Provincial Championships. Eight of those swimmers are from Airdrie, including Elsie Abbott, Spencer Bratton, Gabriella Fedorko, Owen Gaston, Makenna Palmer, Connor Schaan, Robbie Trumper, and Zach Vinuya.
Spencer Bratton and Zach Vinuya, alongside two swimmers from Calgary, Julian Ha and Adrien Chen, took home bronze at the provincial championship in the 13 and under, 200 metre (m) freestyle relay.
“So they are the best of the best in our province –the fastest swimmers in our entire province are there,” said Chad Thompson, NCSA's head age group coach.
Thompson said for some swimmers it was their first time at trials.
Not only did some of them win medals at trials, but they also qualified for championships by meeting the required time to make it to the provincial championship.
“They were some of the fastest kids there because they had improved so much,” Thompson said.
Spencer Bratton and Zach Vinuya qualified in several events for championships and both qualified last year for the Alberta Summer Games alongside Bratton's sister, Charlot Bratton.
Thompson went on to say that Vinuya set a goal of breaking three club records, which he did. Vinuya holds the club records for the 100m individual medley, the 50m butterfly, the 50m backstroke, and the 200m individual medley.
“It was awesome to watch the kids, they were swimming out of their minds,” Thompson said about trials.
Thompson said the trials meet was really special to him as a coach because every podium seemed to have someone wearing an NCSA cap.
He noted that Elsie Abbott placed first in the 800m freestyle, 400m freestyle and the 200m individual medley, placing second in the 50m freestyle, and helping the NCSA 14 and under girls win the 200m relay as well as placing second in the medley relay.
Airdrie swimmer, Charlotte Bratton, came second in the 200m individual medley and 100m individual medley, third in the 50m backstroke, and participated in the winning 200m relay. Thompson said she successfully executed an innovative Butterfly to Back turn in her 100m individual medley at trials, which was filmed and posted online with over a million views.
“The [first] two weeks [of March] have been pretty incredible for us as a club,” he said.
The provincial trials and championships were held on back to back weekends in early March with many NCSA swimmers qualifying for finals.
Next up, two NCSA swimmers are headed to Nationals, but before that, five swimmers are going to Westerns held in Winnipeg.
Westerns is held on March 21 and 24, where one Airdrie athlete, Connor Schaan, will compete. Westerns is one of their last chances to qualify for Nationals as well as the Olympics.
Thompson said there may still be some Airdrie swimmers going to nationals, depending on how Westerns go.
“Connor could, I believe he will, qualify for nationals,” said Thompson.
Swim Clubs desperately need new pool
NCSA hosted their own swim meet in the Calgary community of Seton recently. Thompson said they can’t host meets in the City of Airdrie due to the lack of pool space.
“It's one of the biggest frustrations with the new idea of this new pool [in Airdrie] because there was this opportunity to put that 50m pool in,” Thompson said, referring to the proposed pool in Airdrie’s new southwest recreation centre.
He said having a facility in Airdrie with a 50m competitive pool with ten lanes and a dive tank would hugely benefit the community, not just the local swim clubs and water sport clubs who currently leave the City to use facilities elsewhere.
Airdrie doesn’t have a facility with enough space to host a large meet with 700 to 800 swimmers, which would bring an influx of people, considering the family members and coaches that come along. That means Airdrie’s businesses, hospitality sector, and restaurants also miss out on more business.
"It's not just because we only have one pool in a city of over 80,000 (that's nearly 15K people per lane), it's because the pool we have does not have enough deck space or an adequate viewing area to host a proper meet," Thompson said. "The other important part that's needed in a pool is the depth. In order to hold a high-level meet a pool needs to be a certain depth."
That depth would allow for any flat water sports to take advantage of the pool, such as artistic, waterpolo, and underwater hockey.
NCSA has 155 competitive swimmers and over 200 swimmers in their intro school, and even a meet for just club members wouldn’t be feasible in Airdrie, Thompson said.
