This past weekend, the Queen’s Artistic Swimming Varsity club travelled to the Pan Am Center in Markham, Ontario to compete in the National Championships.
This four-day tournament consisted of a variety of different events in the solo, duet, and team categories, with competitions taking place at both the novice and experienced level. Over 15 different schools competed, five of which entered the competition with multiple teams.
The experienced swimmers from Queen’s were divided into two teams for the championships: team yellow and team blue.
In the first event, the yellow team placed 11th while the blue team placed 20th. In the finals, both teams performed better with the blue team coming in 17th and the yellow team coming in fourth. This win placed the Gaels in the top 20 per cent of teams there. The novice team also performed extremely well, placing seventh overall.
In an interview with The Journal, Claire Christie, a third-year student on the team, shared some of her experience at this tournament, her first national championships.
“This competition was different from most, as they changed the entire way they score the sport just for this competition and going forward,” she said.
“A lot of the universities in attendance were not aware of this until they arrived at nationals, so it really forced us to come together as a team between prelims and finals to assess what we need to do and figure out a game plan to move forward.”
Christie also spoke about how the team had been working on their routines since the beginning of the year to build a strong foundation to work with despite these new scoring challenges.
Perseverance was the main word Christie used to describe their teamwork leading up to nationals. With the six-week ARC pool closure in the fall semester, the team really needed to maximize the practice time they were given.
“Everyone worked so hard this past year, and I am really proud to say we truly are all friends and that our relationships go beyond our individual teams of yellow, blue, and novice.”
Christie also highlighted how every single person on the team worked insanely hard at their routines and were all truly committed to the sport. She believes they all deserve recognition for their amazing work this semester and their performances at nationals.
“This entire team was supported by their coaches—Karen and Hannah—who volunteered their time of six hours a week to coach our team, and they deserve the most recognition of all,” Christie said.
With the National Championships marking the end of their season, they’re already looking forward to getting started again next year.
Tags
artistic swimming, nationals, swim, swimming
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