Yukon swimmer prepares for world youth championships

It will be the biggest swim meet of her life, but Alexandra Gabor is taking her qualification for the 2008 FINA World Youth Swimming Championships all in stride.

It will be the biggest swim meet of her life, but Alexandra Gabor is taking her qualification for the 2008 FINA World Youth Swimming Championships all in stride.

The 15-year-old Whitehorse swimmer officially qualified for the world youth championships at April’s Canadian Olympic Swimming Trials, which took place over six days in Montreal.

At the trials, Gabor amassed a total of 881 points, securing herself a spot on the 24-member team.

What makes Gabor’s qualification so special is the fact that she is the first member of the Whitehorse Glacier Bears to make the Canadian team for this event.

“It feels very good,” Gabor said. “It’s really exciting to know that I get to go to a big meet like this.

I just hope to make our team and Canada proud at that meet and myself too; just to do my best.”

Competition at the world youth championships will be held from July 8-13 in Monterrey, Mexico.

The meet is opened to female swimmers, who are 14 to 17 years old, while malesmust be between the ages of 15 to 18 years old.

Besides Gabor, the Canadian team will be made up of 13 swimmers from Ontario, five from Quebec, one from Saskatchewan, three from B.C. and one from Alberta.

Glacier Bears coach Marek Poplawski will also be attending the meet as on of the six coaches for the Canadian squad.

The inaugural edition of the youth championships was held in 2006 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The 2006 meet featured 480 athletes coming from 61 countries.

This year, each federation may enter up to two swimmers per event.

Nothing has been finalized yet what events Gabor will swim in, but her preferences are the 100-m Freestyle, 200-m Freestyle and the 400-m Freestyle.

This has been Gabor’s best season to date in the sport.

Among her accomplishments, besides qualifying for the world youth championships are breaking four Canadian swimming records, numerous Glacier Bears records and competing in her first overseas swim meets in Geneva and Luxemburg City.

The meets were a part of the 2008 Euro Tour.

The meet in Luxemburg was particularly special for Gabor, who broke the Canadian age group record for 13 and 14-year-old swimmers, which had been set in 1989.

Her time of 2:02.32 was just over one second faster than the previous best finish of 2:03.35.

The time was also a new personal best for Gabor by two seconds and it won her a gold medal in her age group.

Gabor finished an impressive fourth in the 200-m freestyle “A” final.

Gabor said her experience competing in Europe earlier in the season will benefit her at the world youth championships.

“That was also international, so I got a bit of a feeling of how it feels to race against foreign swimmers,” she said.

“It was fun because I didn’t know what they could do, so I just did my best to try to beat them. Europe was a really good experience preparing me for this meet.”

Her goals for the world youth championships include finishing somewhere in the top eight for each event.

To make sure she is as prepared as possible for some of the more prominent meets this season, Gabor has been pushing herself harder in practice since February.

She currently trains 18 hours a week in the sport.

Gabor said the extra work in practice has paid off this season.

“This season has been really good,” she said.

“Hopefully it will get better in the summer, just bring it up a notch, but I am really happy with it.”

Poplawski said Gabor has a lot of strengths as a swimmer that helped her qualify for the world youth championships.

Being able to attend the meet as a coach means a lot to him, said Poplawski.

“I think that for me, that’s the highlight of my coaching career and would say to my knowledge, the highest level of competition where a coach from the Yukon was nominated to attend,” he said.

“I am proud that I can really accomplish something for the Yukon where I’m lucky to coach.”

He said he is excited about watching the Canadian team at the meet.

“Alex and the other Canadian swimmers that I will be coaching there, they are very good,” he said.

“This year is a good team and I think they will be coming home with some medals and I am looking forward to being part of it.”