Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Hawaii

March 31st, 2007 | Dan Kershaw | Newsletter, Seniors, Stingray News, Swim Meets

This past October, I was excited and very pleased to hear that I had been selected to compete on the Canadian Junior National Team. The team would be traveling to Kihei, Maui, Hawaii in December to compete at the 2007 Junior Pan Pacific Championships, a meet for swimmers aged 18 & under. My selection was based on the swimming I had done last summer.

Although I was really excited, it was also initially a pretty scary experience for me, as I was leaving for two-and-a-half weeks without my parents, and I didn’t really know anybody on the team.

I left Toronto airport on the morning of December 30, 2006 with seven other swimmers from Ontario. We first headed to Vancouver where we met up with all 26 swimmers (13 girls and 13 boys) from across Canada, and five coaches and two team managers. From there we departed for Hawaii, unified as one team.

We began a training camp pretty much as soon as we got there, with five hours of training every day; two workouts a day, along with at least an hour of dry land on the beach. For the training camp portion of the trip we were staying in a condominium, cooking breakfast and lunch for ourselves every day (which was an experience in itself with Feo, my crazy roommate from Quebec!).

When most people think about going to Hawaii, they picture relaxing on the beach and partying late into the night. However, we were training hard and most of the time we were too tired to even think of going to the beach. During the camp we did a few fun things though, like going snorkeling, visiting the lava rock fields, and shopping. It was fun getting to know everyone on the team, and we developed a really good team spirit.

On January 8 we moved out of the condominium to a Five Star Hotel where we would be staying for the competition. The food at this new hotel was amazing! I stuffed my face at every meal. By this point, all of the other teams had arrived, and they were all staying in the same hotel with us. We also all ate together in the same big room, so that was pretty cool. The teams at the competition were: Canada, USA, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Bermuda, Guam, China, Mexico and El Salvador.

Considering the tough competition, heavy training, and the outdoor Long Course pool (something I’m not used to), I swam pretty well at the meet. I got some second swims in finals at night, and it was really exciting to be chosen to swim on two of Canada’s relays.

We left Hawaii on January 15 back to Canada, and I was greeted with snow flurries — and a pile of school work to catch up on. In general, however, the trip was a great experience. I made a lot of new friends, who I keep in touch with, and I have a lot of awesome memories.

Matthew Swanston, Senior