This past week, Noemie
Thomas (14), based out of Tsawwassen and the Winskill Dolphins Swim
Club, travelled to Montreal for the 2010 Quebec Cup, where the best
swimmers in Canada and the United States came out to race.
Thomas, who made serious
waves at the recent Mel Zajac Invitational in Vancouver, was part
of a sixteen member Canada Prospects Team, an identification
program for elite young swimmers within Swimming Canada,
participating in a training camp and competing at the meet.
On Friday, Thomas posted her
best time in the 50m Butterfly during preliminaries heats, which
qualified her for the A Final in the evening. Later that
night, racing such Canadian Senior National team athletes as
Katerine Savard, and the youngest A Finalist by four years, Thomas
swam 27.86 seconds for the 6th place finish, bettering
her time from the morning by 0.24 seconds.
Returning to pool on
Saturday, Thomas threw down another strong swim in the 100m
Butterfly preliminary heats, securing her another spot in the A
Final for that event. Once again, she stepped up to the
challenge of the older swimmers, swimming her 100m in 1 minute 0.98
seconds to finish 5th overall, narrowly missing the
national record by 0.06 seconds, but smashing the BC Provincial
record by over half a second!
“She did really
well,” said Tom Rushton, Thomas’ coach and Head Coach
for the Winskill Dolphins. “We came to Montreal for
good training and racing under stressful and adverse conditions,
and she stepped-up for both. Sure, her performances were
solid, but when you consider she swam them at the tail end of a
training camp and she was still able to stick to her race plan,
that’s quite good. What we look for in our athletes is
adaptability - that is, can they perform their best when they are
facing some difficulties. As they get to the top level of the
sport, such as the World Championships and Olympic Games, they are
continually faced with new challenges such as different cultures,
languages, transportation to and from the facilities etc. If we can
prepare them for these things now they will be one step ahead of
their competitors from the other great swimming countries such as
Australia, Great Britain, and the United States."
Currently ranked
5th in Canada for the Butterfly, Noemie, who recently
completed her grade 8, now sets her sights on the US Grand Prix in
Los Angeles this weekend and Summer Nationals later this July,
where she looks to qualify for the 2010 Junior Pan Pacific Games in
Kihei, Hawaii.
