Where there’s a will, for some of the Flin Flon Aqua Jets, there’s a way – even when they don’t have a pool to swim in.
The swimming club sent four members to Winnipeg for a recent provincial meet, despite their home pool, the Flin Flon Aqua Centre, being permanently shut down.
In what may be the club’s last meet in its current form, Madison Campbell, Jordan Gorrell, Cory Lane and Mila Neubuhr competed in Winnipeg in seven different events.
All four swimmers accomplished personal bests at the meet. Gorrell earned a silver in the 50-metre backstroke event, while Neubuhr earned bronze in the 200-metre breaststroke race. All four athletes are aiming to join Team North at this summer’s Manitoba Summer Games.
Swimmers have had limited options since the closure for training. The one remaining pool in the area, located at the Victoria Inn, is not large enough for the swimmers to train for races. Members, coaches and parents have had no other option but to make the three hour round trip to The Pas’ Winton Pool several times a week. It’s the north’s sole remaining race pool for practice.
“We’ve been travelling. The Pas’ swim team has been good and very generous. A lot of swimmers have been going down twice a week, Tuesday and Thursdays. They swim for two hours,” said club president Tara Trudeau.
The Pas’ swim team, the Roadrunners, has hosted the Aqua Jets swimmers during training. Since the closure of the Aqua Centre and the complete shutdown of Thompson’s Norplex Pool last year, the Winton is the only remaining place for northern competitive swimmers to train.
That fact has led to some long days for both swimmers and parents. Trudeau, Gorrell’s mother, said they spent hours training for the tournament.
“We’ve rented the pool down there ourselves, just as parents, not even as a club, and had them train on their own on Saturdays and Sundays,” Trudeau said.
“What are parents for, right?”
For the Aqua Jets as a club, the future is uncertain. Since the club no longer has a functioning pool, they have chosen to temporarily suspend operations.
“We had our wind-up already because we were so uncertain with the pool,” Trudeau said.
“We just decided to fold until further notice, but because these swimmers qualified for junior provincials, we didn’t want to give up on them. We still wanted them to compete and compete well. When you go down south, the swimmers are phenomenal. They can swim for five days a week if they want to. We don’t have that option at all.”
The season has been cut short twice for the competitive swimmers. The Aqua Centre closed earlier this winter for repairs, leaving swimmers without a place to train for nearly a month.
“Usually, we can swim right up to May. We usually have two regular meets we had planned and there’s another event, a AA tournament, called Man-Sask. That’s in March,” Trudeau said.
Qualifying for the Manitoba Summer Games, to be held this summer in Dauphin, will be complicated. Northern swimmers, with only one pool left to train in, will have to make do with their current situation.
“With Thompson losing theirs last year and who knows what’s coming for The Pas, everyone’s just kind of left in the dark,” Trudeau said.
Club members re-entered the now barricaded building to gather up the club’s equipment from inside the building last week. Where it will all be stored is uncertain.
Trudeau said the pool’s closure had a huge impact on young and improving athletes.
“We have one swimmer where this was his first provincials he made and he really came a long way. This is his first year really excelling at the sport. Now, there’s nowhere to train.”
