Pardon the blinding flash of gold from two 14 Wing Greenwood swimmers, fresh out of the pool with Canadian Armed Forces 2023 national swimming wins.
March 26 and 26, Master Corporal Sandi McLean and Corporal Anthony Savard joined members of the CAF swim team to compete at CAF nationals in Nepean, held with the Masters Swim Ontario Provincial Championship.
McLean swam in seven races and won seven Senior Ontario gold medals, which translate to two CAF titles (CAF swimming rules require three military competitors in the same division/ event to have it count as a CAF medal). Savard won gold in his first CAF national appearance.
Savard has been away from competitive swimming for 16 years, but started training again as he settled in with14 Mission Support Squadron’s Transport Electrical Mechanical Engineering last summer.
“The energy, the bond and the thrill before a race was exactly what it was for me 16 years ago when I was swimming,” he says. “During the competition, the cheers from our teammates and competitors made me remember what I like from this sport. Personally, it made me want to go back every year and train harder to be able to compete with athletes from all around Canada.”
Savard is impressed with the CAF team’s swim coaches, who took time at the event to watch everyone swim, and provided tips on strokes and technique. He also really enjoyed a moment when an 81-year-old woman, swimming as a provincial competitor in the 400 metres freestyle event, broke a Canadian record. Swimmers made two rows and arched their arms in a tunnel for her to pass through, as spectators gave her a round of applause, after the race.
McLean, a staffer in the wing chief’s office, is no stranger to the CAF swimming program: she’s competed at both CISM swim and lifesaving events. With one lifesaving event in 2022, but no swimming nationals since before the pandemic, she was confidently aiming for four gold medals heading into the CAF nationals. She won all seven of the provincial-level races she entered: the 100 m breaststroke and freestyle (which represent her two CAF gold races), the 50 m breaststroke and freestyle, the 100 m butterfly and the mixed and female medley relays.
“I’m motivated by winning – what motivates you is unique to you, and it makes you perform. For me, I have to make a goal and decide to do it and, when I say that outloud to other people, I have to do it. I’m very competitive with myself.”
McLean also found some “re-inspiration” at this swimming event. Lifesaving, she has to work at, as the techniques to moving a 40-pound mannequin through the pool or surf are a challenge for anyone of smaller stature. While she admits to relying on “muscle memory” for more recent swimming, this success has “renewed my love for it again.
“It felt really good: I had an incredible outcome, and it motived me. I don’t love the training, but it’s a means to the end of winning, and you do what you have to do to get there. I love racing, I love racing swimming and I love competing.”
A handful of the CAF swim team members have made a pledge to each other to train for the next round of Canadian swim team Olympic trials: McLean says their vision is to walk into that competition as a CAF force: “that would be huge.” She’s also targeting an August national lifesaving event planned for Nova Scotia’s own Martinique beach. And, after winning two regional gold medals in her first bodybuilding competition in 2021, she’s calendared another event this summer.
“I want to finish top-three,” she says. “There, I said it. I started training again this week.”
Further inspiration came as McLean watched three other military women – Lieutenant Mercedes LeBlanc and Lieutenant Jenna O’Brien (Cold Lake), and Corporal Savanah LeBlanc (Halifax) – swim at CAF nationals: she coached all three as youth swimmers in the Greenwood Dolphins swim club.
“That would have been in the pool three mornings a week, driving them home for breakfast and then to school; then picking them up after school for more pool time, and driving them on weekends to competitions. Hours, days and weekends – and it was always awesome.
“I have lots of love for ‘my’ swimmers, and it’s nice to see I made an impact and they’re still swimming.”
Mclean and Savard are regulars in the Greenwood pool, and McLean is pitching in with the revitalized Greenwood ZX Multisport Club, coaching the swimming program for both new and more experienced members. For information on military sports, lane swims, specialty swim training and the ZX Club, check at the 14 Wing Greenwood Fitness and Sports Centre front desk.
