West swims to top of podium

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This article was published 15/05/2024 (536 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was the perfect stage for Halle West to remind onlookers she’s one of the brightest up-and-comers in Canada’s swimming pipeline.

Racing at the Canadian Olympic trials on Tuesday evening, the 15-year-old from Winnipeg continued her rapid ascent in the rankings when she won the junior women’s 100-metre breaststroke at Toronto Pan Am Sport Centre.

West swam a blistering one minute 10.36 seconds in her signature race, edging out Québec’s Kamila Blanchard by fewer than four-tenths of a second.

“I’m trying to think about my own race but I can tell if people are close or coming up behind me. In a 100, it’s always really close, though, so a couple of tenths, I can tell I had it in the last five metres,” West said of her race.

“The crowd was really loud, which was really cool, and I was just really happy and kind of relieved. It was just a proud moment.”

Her parents and sister, Mia, were among hundreds watching from the stands.

Mia placed third in the women’s 200-m freestyle race earlier in the day.

Halle called Tuesday’s victory the biggest of her young career. She only emerged as a competitive swimmer two years ago, but it’s been a wild ride since that time.

In 2022, she swam the fastest 200-M individual medley of any 13-year-old Canadian female, with a time of two minutes 18.21 seconds.

Last year, she placed second in the 100m breaststroke, which was enough to qualify her for the Canadian junior national team for the first time.

The win not only reserved her spot on the team again but gave her the inside track at racing a leg on the country’s relay team. Halle will also get another start on the world stage, qualifying for the Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, which takes place in Australia in August.

She competed at the World Junior Swimming Championships in Israel last September

Szilvie Carriere, head coach at Manta Swim Club, has trained Halle since she was 12. The blossoming swimmer’s latest triumph was more than fitting, Carriere said.

“She’s a very talented athlete but talent is not everything,” she said. “She also has a tremendous amount of work ethic and hyper-focus every practice, so progressing into this elite level performance, definitely is not a surprise.

“She has quite a bit of experience and she’s a very focused athlete, so her performance was fantastic. Definitely an extremely high point in my coaching career to have her be nominated to the Junior Pan Pacific championship in Australia this year.”

Halle’s story this week may have only begun. She will race in several other events by the time the Olympic trials conclude Sunday, including the 200-m individual medley.

“Being from Manitoba, it’s a pretty small swimming province compared to a lot of the other ones. There’s seven of us from Manitoba here and that’s one the biggest groups we’ve had in a lot of years,” she said.

“Coming up and getting to be a part of Team Canada is a really proud moment for me because I’m coming from such a small community. The past two years… it’s been cool.”

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca

X: @jfreysam