Churchill swimmer shooting for OFSAA medal (updated with link to results)

Camren Carter is making up for lost time.

The 17-year-old, Grade 12 student at Sir Winston Churchill lost a couple of valuable years when high school sports were cancelled due to COVID but plans to finish off his high school career at the top.

Carter qualified for the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSSA) swim meet with a solid performance at the SOSSA (Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association) meet Thursday at Brock.

Carter finished with a time of 1:05.9 in the boys 13-19 100-metre breaststroke, which qualifies him for OFSAA March 5-6 at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Complex.

“My best time is 1:03 but I’m pretty happy,” Carter said. 

Swimmers qualify for OFSAA based on time.

“I think I’ll be in first going into it and hopefully I can just hang on to it,” Carter added.

Carter is pumped for his first trip to the Ontario championships.

“I’ve never been because of COVID. It’s my senior year and I finally get to go to OFSAA and compete and maybe win as well,” he said.

Sir Winston swimming coach Lars Bruschke has high hopes for Carter at OFSAA.

“At OFSAA he’s going for the gold in the open category, 100-metre breaststroke. Based on his best times, and last year’s times, he should be up there,” Bruschke said.

Bruschke has witnessed Carter come into his own.

“Camren has been a fantastic swimmer for the past couple of years,” Bruschke said. “He’s been on our team through a little bit of trouble through COVID when we couldn’t have a team but he was still swimming his club team (Brock Niagara Aquatics) and in our practices he comes and shines at our meets.

“He’s a real team leader and helps out the other team members.”

Carter puts in eight practices and 20 hours a week with Brock Niagara Aquatics.

“That really helps,” he said. “At a young age I always liked the water so I joined when I was 10 and just stuck with it throughout COVID and now I’m here.”

Carter, who last year won a silver medal in the 100-meter breaststroke at the Eastern Canadian Championship and qualified for the Canadian Olympic trials, is hoping to attend the University of Calgary next year and swim for the Dinos.

“They’re the best team in Canada for swimming on the men’s side so I think it will be a real good experience to get some new competition,” he said. 

Following are results:

https://www.nrhsaa.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SOSSA-2023-Final-Team-scores.pdf

https://www.nrhsaa.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SOSSA-2023-results.pdf

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