Swimming down to Rio

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This article was published 11/04/2016 (3708 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Chantal Van Landeghem learned early on the value of hard work, so when the man who taught her was there to see years of training pay off with an Olympic berth, it was a surprise that unleashed a torrent of tears.

Her family once owned Jeanne’s Bakery on Notre Dame Avenue. When she was seven, after school she and her younger sister, Tia, would sometimes tag along with her father, Wayne, who often worked the night shift. Together they watched as he ran from one task to the next. Occasionally, they would help out by mopping the floors.

“He just worked ridiculous hours,” recalled Van Landeghem Sunday. “He didn’t have to tell us, we saw it every single day how hard he worked. He showed it to us rather than having to explain it.”

Saturday, it was her hard work on full display. The 22-year-old swam the 100-metre freestyle in 53.91 seconds at the Canadian Olympic trials in Toronto to earn a berth into the 2016 Summer Games in Rio.

“It was one of the best moments of my life last night,” said Van Landeghem, who also qualified Sunday for the 50-metre free. “It’s been a dream of mine ever since I was a little girl.”

It was fitting she got to share it with the man who had been there from the beginning. Unbeknownst to Van Landeghem — in order to alleviate any added pressure her parents stopped attending her events years ago — her father had booked his ticket to Toronto.

Blending into her support group, he watched anxiously in the stands as she raced her way to her first Olympic berth. It was her moment, but he wasn’t going to miss it for the world.

“The past few years my wife and I have really taken a back seat to her,” said Wayne Van Landeghem. “We did it because wanted to make sure swim meets weren’t about us anymore, that it was about her.”

It wasn’t long after pulling herself out of the pool and hugging her fellow racers Van Landeghem turned her attention to the crowd. When she locked eyes with her dad — just one of her seemingly endless number of supporters — the surprise was so great it brought her to uncontrollable tears.

She couldn’t speak. She could only think about what it meant to have him there.

After all, her hard work had paid off. And in some ways, her parents’ hard work, too.

“My parents have ultimately made me the woman that I am today and I owe everything to them,” she said. “They have shown and taught me so much.”

The importance of hard work. Follow your passion. You have to love what you’re doing to truly enjoy it. Live life to the fullest.

‘It was one of the best moments of my life last night. It’s been a dream of mine ever since I was a little girl’– Chantal Van Landeghem, on qualifying for the 100-metre freestyle, just after qualifying for a second Olympic event, the 50-metre freestyle, Sunday 

These were the rules in the Van Landeghem home. That’s why, when it became clear at a young age she was a quick study in the pool and it was recommended she swim competitively, her parents wanted to be sure of one thing.

“I would come home from practice and they would ask, ‘Are you having fun? Do you enjoy this?’” she said. “Because of that, swimming has always been something I’ve done because I love it.”

It wasn’t long before casual lessons at Winnipeg’s Pan Am Pool turned into detailed training with the Manta Swim Club. What began as hours per week at the pool became days.

“We knew,” said Tom Hainey, her longtime coach with the program. “I’ve been coaching for a while, so we knew we had something special here.”

Van Landeghem made her first junior national team at the age of 12. That season, she and three of her teammates would break a Canadian record in the relay competition. It was this moment, she said, she realized swimming was a chance for her to “be something great.”

It would be relatively smooth sailing from there. She travelled the world, seeing things that blinded her from the usual and often destructive distractions to which many in their teenage years fall victim.

It wouldn’t be until the Olympic trials for the London Games in 2012 she would face her first real test. Just before, Van Landeghem swam her heart out at the world championships in Shanghai, posting one of her best times in the four-by-100-metre relay.

She came up just short — in fact, the shortest margin swimming times calculate — missing the qualifying mark in the 100-metre freestyle by .01 seconds. It broke her heart. The thought of quitting crossed her mind.

“Her first words to me were ‘I let everybody down,’” said Hainey. “She didn’t. Everyone that knows Chantal loves her.”

That love and support soon silenced any doubt that threatened to creep in. She still loved the sport, and at 18 years old, had much more to give.

“I had to prove to myself that I was better than that, because I was better than that,” said Van Landeghem.

She returned to the pool four days later, and after the summer started her collegiate career at the University of Georgia, where she’s helped lead her school to two NCAA national championships. Last summer, at the Pan Am Games, she finished with a gold and set a Pan Am and Canadian record.

This season, she decided to red-shirt a year from school in order to move to Toronto to concentrate full time on swimming. Now, she can finally call herself an Olympian.

“It still hasn’t completely hit me yet,” she said. “I still have lots of training to do if I want to be faster this summer.”

Alas, many more full days of work ahead.

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.catwitter: @jeffkhamilton