Six Airdrie swimmers from the Nose Creek Swim Association (NCSA) made a splash at the 2019 Alberta Summer Championships in Edmonton July 5 to 7. The event, one of NCSA’s biggest meets of the long-course swim season, acts as the provincial championship for teenage swimmers.
“They did very well,” said assistant head coach Alexx Diep. “We go to meets and we track their percentage of improvements. Typically, at a big meet like this, swimmers improve in 60 to 70 per cent of their races. Among these six swimmers, they scored 73 per cent, this time.”
Airdrie’s most experienced swimmers at the meet were 15-year-old Sean Penner, 14-year-old Nathan Wong and 13-year-old Montana Dobry. A trio of local 12-year-olds – Hailey Martin, Hailey Hughes and Adam Fedorko – also made the trip north. Though Penner was the only athlete to bring home hardware, personal Bests (PBs) abounded – of the 38 events they competed in, the swimmers improved their times in 28.
From a personal development standpoint, Fedorko and Hughes were Airdrie’s top performers, setting new PBs in each event they competed in.
Penner, a freestyle and butterfly specialist, finished with four gold medals. He dominated the freestyle events for his age group, touching the wall first in the 200-metre (m), 50-m and 100-m events, while also winning the 50-m butterfly race.
The St. Martin de Porres High School student also swam well in his other four events – Penner took home silver in the 100-m butterfly, a bronze in the 50-m backstroke and a fourth-place finish in the 100-m backstroke, and set PBs in four of his seven events.
Considering most of Airdrie’s athletes were at the younger end of their age groups, Diep said, their performances were admirable.
“We have [Wong] – who swims really well – up against 15-year-old boys, so that was tougher for him,” he said. “Next year, he’ll be the superstar of the age group. [Dobry] is also younger, so for them to maybe not medal but still do this well – we were quite happy with that.”
While the Summer Championships represents the highest level of provincial competition, Diep said three of Airdrie’s NCSA members still have races to swim. Wong, Penner and Dobry will be in action at the Canadian Junior Championships July 24 to 28, at the Repsol Sports Centre in Calgary.
“Junior nationals will be a tough meet,” Penner said. “If I can show up there and make a finals spot, that will be good enough for me.”
Penner and Wong also qualified for the Alberta team that will compete at the Western Canada Summer Games in Swift Current, Sask. That event runs Aug. 9 to 13, and will conclude their summer season.
“I’m just looking forward to having fun,” Penner said. “Just having that overall mass-sporting experience with everyone should be a lot of fun.”
