While high-profile alumni such as Markus Thormeyer are winning medals for Canada at the Commonwealth Games, the Winskill Dolphins Swim Club is busy these days grooming the next wave of top athletes.
Thormeyer, who is just 20, won bronze in the 200 metre backstroke last week in Gold Coast, Australia and is recognized as one of the rising stars on the national team. The South Delta Secondary graduate turned down a scholarship offer from USC to stay with the UBC-based Swim Canada program. Meanwhile, two other Dolphin alumni — Noemie Thomas and Paul Zou — did take their careers to the NCAA level at Cal-Berkeley and Penn respectively. Thomas competed in the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio.
The latest heading south is national-carded athlete Tai Long Singh who is also going the Ivy League route, having committed to Princeton next fall.
A number of other recent graduates are now swimming for USport programs in Canada.
Hoping to follow their paths are Thomas Kranjc, Calvin Sinn, Devon Dupuis and Aimee Brennan. All have achieved status in the B.C. Targeted Athlete Program.
Sprint specialist Kranjc, 16, swam for his province at the Canada Summer Games in Winnipeg last August where he reached the finals in 50m freestyle and 50m butterfly, finishing seventh and sixth respectively. He also produced best time swims as a member of B.C.’s three relay teams, winning a pair of silver medals and a bronze. Kranjc earned B.C. carded athlete status with Pacific Sport’s Junior Athlete Development Program thanks to a world class performance in the 100m freestyle.
Slinn, 14, and Dupuis, 15, are recognized as two of the top eight male swimmers in the province for their age group and are headed to Saskatoon next month for the Team B.C. Prospects West camp.
At the recent tier two provincials in Kamloops, Dupuis won the 200 fly, while Slinn, a distance specialist, captured the 400, 800 and 1500 free, setting new provincial records in the process.
Finally, Brennan has earned status as a Next Generation athlete in Paralympic swimming and is targeted as a prospect for the 2020 Games in Toyko. She will be heading to Montreal at the end of the month for a para-swimming national training camp.
Overseeing their progress is Dolphin interim head coach Judy Baker. The one-time world class swimmer and national team member has returned to the club she guided for over a decade in the 1990s. Baker is also head coach of the Otters masters program, meaning long hours these days at the Winskill Aquatic Centre. She is impressed with the club’s run of producing elite swimmers in recent years.
“We usually send five to six swimmers to any given meet because we don’t have the depth that the bigger clubs do. But from that depth we have some very high quality swimmers continually coming from this program,” said Baker. “We are always trying to identify the next generation from our younger age groups.”
For more information on the Dolphins and their various programs offered at the Winskill and Ladner Leisure Centre pools, visit www.winskilldolphins.ca.
