The Moose Jaw Kinsmen Flying Fins are used to winning medals and putting together top performances any time they hit the pool, but what Mateah Purdy put together at the Man/Sask provincial championships during the Mar. 19 weekend was something else altogether.
Facing the top swimmers from Manitoba and Saskatchewan at the Pan Am Pool in Winnipeg, Purdy challenged for the medals in all three breaststroke distances before bringing home gold in the 50m breast for one of the top local performances at the elite meet in recent years. She then followed up by winning gold with Team Sask in the relays, swimming the 100m breast leg.
“I certainly expected her to be in the medals, and she was in the finals and right close to the top three in all three breaststroke swims and there are high, high-level breaststrokers she was swimming against,” said Flying Fins coach Gord Shields. “We didn’t necessarily expect her to win, but we were sure hoping for her to be in the medals, so to pull it off in the 50 breast is pretty impressive.”
Purdy, 14, swam 37.64 seconds in the preliminary round and took the best time into the final. There, she was even faster, touching the wall in 37.02 and just outreaching her opponent at the wall.
“When you’re at those high-level competitions and there are lots of swimmers there, you’re seeded not by 10ths of a second, but by 100ths of a second and you have to be really prepared to step up and race,” Shields said. “You have to be prepared mentally and physically to challenge and be in the top three at that level of swim meet, and Mateah certainly was this weekend.”
Purdy also knocked 3.73 seconds off her personal best in the distance, with each of her 13 swims doing much the same.
The impressive showing instantly puts the Cornerstone Christian School student on the radar for future elite meets and possible consideration for provincial teams and beyond.
“People will be watching her and seeing how she progresses because she is young, she’s only 14-years-old, so she definitely has many years of swimming ahead of her,” Shields said. “But for sure now she’ll be watched, especially in Saskatchewan, because she’s the fastest breaststroker in Saskatchewan in her age group. So she’ll definitely be someone to watch in the future and has a lot of potential to do well in the sport.”
Also making the trip east were Makaya Arnott, Damian Chartrand and Erica Zinn, with the former duo joining Purdy in recording personal best times across the board. All told, the Fins saw 34 of their 36 swims on the weekend result in lifetime bests.
Arnott, 14, also finished fifth in the 50m freestyle final, 12th in the 50m fly final and 16th in the 100m fly, while Chartand, 16, landed ninth in the 100m breast, 12th in the 50m breast and 12th in the 200m breast. Zinn, 16, competed in the fastest field of the meet and had an 18th place finish in the 50m back as her top showing.
“For every one of them to swim that well and take off that much time, it was just fantastic,” Shields said. “For some of them, this was their first competition at that level, and being in the Pan Am Pool, that’s a huge and impressive facility so the first time there can be intimidating, especially when you see the competition at that level. But they all stepped up, made it into the finals in a lot of their events and I was extremely pleased with how well all four of them performed.”
The Fins are now at the beginning of a technical training cycle as they transition into the summer season, with their next meet in Saskatoon during the May 6 weekend.
