GDCI swimmer earns gold medal at OFSAA

GDCI swimmer Kleuskens swam a best time at OFSAA and captured a gold medal.

Siobhan Kleuskens competed in OFSAA swimming competition in Toronto earlier in March, earning a gold medal in the 50-metre freestyle swim.

Kleuskens also matched her best time to achieve 5th in the province in the 100-metre freestyle swim.

According to coach Wendy Million, Kleuskens had a phenomenal two days competing at OFSAA.

Kleuskens swam the 50-metre freestyle on March 4. Going into the meet she was seeded second in the province for that event.

Coach Million knew she could break 29 seconds, which she hadn’t done yet.

In the preliminaries, she had a middle lane and some excellent competition, which propelled her to a 28.62 finish. This allowed her to go into the A Final ranked first.

In the final, Million and Kleuskens knew it would be a very bang-bang-bang finish in terms of times and how tight the outcome would be.

During the finals warm up, Million coached Kleuskens to work on correcting her finishing touch to a quicker full stroke rotation instead of a flat finish.

According to Million, when the starter went off for the 50-metre freestyle, Kleuskens led by a narrow margin at the turn, but she accelerated through the finish and used the touch they’d worked on in practice to narrowly defeat her opponents and swim a personal best 28.37.

After swimming a personal best time in the 50-metre freestyle, Kleuskens entered the A Final in first place.

Right from the start, Kleuskens demonstrated how coachable she is, executing the strategy perfectly that she and her coach developed for the 50-metre freestyle. She swam another best time and captured the gold medal.

During the second day, Kleuskens participated in the 100-metre freestyle. Based on her cutting off time in her 50-metre freestyle, Million believed there was a chance she could do the same on her 100-metre freestyle swim.

Ranked 10th place based on her entry time, Kleuskens swam a personal best in the preliminaries to go into the finals in 4th place.

Million understood there was an outside chance she could medal again, but it would require her opponents to perform poorly, and for Kleuskens to swim better than her preliminary race.

Unfortunately, her competition also had a stellar day and everyone who finished above her, also achieved best times.

Kleuskens finished the race in 5th place.

“Given that this is fifth place in the entire province, it’s still a huge accomplishment,” Million said.

Million explained that in the 50-metre freestyle race, Kleuskens proved herself very coachable, as she was during the entire season.

“We were constantly working on perfecting her turn and maximizing her breath control,” explained Million.

“Kleuskens really bought into the training and process behind those elements, consistently putting in the work.”

When Million noticed Kleuskens’ touch was too flat in the preliminary heats, she worked on the modified touch during the warm up before finals and Kleuskens was able to execute the new version to perfection.

“She has great body awareness, and this year she had great control of her mental game both as the race approached and after it was over,” said Million.

Last year, Kleuskens finished 6th in the province in the 50-metre freestyle. This race was her strength, and she consistently trained and worked toward the potential for her to earn a medal this year.

Last year, Million believed that with the right training and circumstances, Kleuskens could medal this year.

Kleuskens didn’t make the A or B Finals last year for the 100-metre freestyle, and while she improved in that race this year, Million admitted they weren’t as focused on it in practice and with the training they were completing.

“If I had another year with her, I’m sure I could get her into gold medal contention for that race too,” Million said.

“She’s incredibly coachable.”

Kleuskens is headed to Western University in the autumn. As of now, she has no intention of pursuing swimming beyond this stellar season.