Even in the euphoria of making the 2016 Olympics in her specialty, Dominique Bouchard could put her Canadian Olympic & Para-swimming Trials experience in perspective.
It's not just what a long meet takes out of a swimmer, it's what the swimmer takes from her meet. Bouchard had already qualified for Rio 2016 before Sunday's women's 200-metre backstroke. The North Bay native and long-time rival Hilary Caldwell repeated their Pan Am Games finish as Caldwell captured the gold medal in two minutes 7.96 seconds, while Bouchard came in at 2:08.52 for the silver and a second swim at Rio. The 24-year-old had already given North Bay a Summer Olympian by qualifying in 100 backstroke on Wednesday.
“I was actually more nervous for the 200 going in tonight than I was for the 100,” Bouchard, an alumna of Titans Swimming who is now based in Columbia, Mo., where she is completing her masters degree in health-care education at the University of Missouri. “It's my baby, it's been my race for so long. So if I was going to miss it, it would have been really disappointing. I went out a little faster in the first 100 than I wanted to, but that was part of laying it out all on the line.”
Bouchard came within a second of qualifying for the 2012 Olympics, and also went to her first Trials as a teen in 2008. All told, she will be part of a 27-swimmer Canadian team in Rio.
“It's a sense of relief – 'you finally did; all the hard work paid off,” she said. “I am at the tailend of my career, to finish off making an Olympic team is great.
“I know what to work on now,” Bouchard added. “I'll definitely go back to training in about a week or so. I'll definitely be faster in Rio.”
Bouchard was the top Canadian in women's 200 back at the FINA World Aquatics Championships last August in Kazan, Russia, finishing sixth, about 1.7 seconds off the podium. On the phone Sunday night, she related that her biggest adjustment for Rio will be handling that intervals between her events. Most swim meets are 3-4 days, but the six-day Trials approximated
“The most important thing I learned from this meet concerned how my rest, how my taper, was done for this meet. We weren't ready for that three-day gap between the events and I think my 200 suffered a bit as a result. So we will go back to the drawing board for that taper and get it right for Rio.”
With the Trials being in Toronto, Bouchard had her parents Marise and Yvan Bouchard in the crowd at the Pan Am Sports Centre. Her boyfriend, Adam Abernathy, was also on hand for the major life moment.
“I had 12 or 13 people from my family in the stands tonight, my boyfriend came all the way from Missouri,” Bouchard said. “It's been exciting sharing it with them. My mum keeps saying, 'I'm the mother of an Olympian!' It's really fun. They've supported me all the way, I don't think they missed a competition until I was in university. They always say they just had me, but they got that one right. I owe them for that.”
The swimming competitions at the Olympics will take place from Aug. 6-13.
