World Para Swimming Championships | Swim more lightly

Aurélie Rivard and Nicolas-Guy Turbide will represent Canada at the Para-swimming World Championships in Portugal starting on Sunday. For the two swimmers, this is the first stage of a new Paralympic cycle which will take them to Paris in 2024. A cycle which they intend to approach with more lightness.

Nicholas Richard
The Press

They will be 31 Canadian swimmers to land in Madeira. The Press intercepted the two Paralympic medalists in their hotel room in Crawley, England, about an hour from London, where they spent 11 days before flying to Portugal.

In swimming, the Worlds are the most important competition after the Paralympic Games. Very little. Usually, and this has been confirmed over the last 20 years, the World Championships are faster than the Games. This is where the majority of speed records are set.

This can be explained in particular by the fact that, unlike the Paralympic Games, everything is in place to offer the athletes better performance conditions. At the Games, for example, swimmers may be called upon to compete early in the morning or late at night to satisfy US television networks.

Nothing left to prove

Asked if they felt a certain pressure considering the fact that this is the first major competition since the Tokyo Games, Turbide replies without hesitation: “I don’t even have the impression that I will in competition[tition] ! »

” Neither do I ! “Immediately adds Rivard, bursting out laughing.

“It’s hard to believe, because getting to Tokyo was tough. There were always obstacles. There, it looks like it was so easy to get to the World Championships that it’s hard to believe that we’ll be swimming in just a few days, without complications,” said the winner of five medals at the last Games.

After two extremely complicated years where the two athletes questioned themselves, these Worlds and this virtual return to normal will be an excellent way for swimmers to see where they are in their progress. “It gives a good idea of ​​what the Paralympic Games are going to look like,” says Rivard.

Turbide notes that they still arrive without pressure. “Above all, we have nothing to prove,” he underlines.

With their multiple medals won at the Paralympic Games, the Worlds and the Parapan American Games, Turbide and Rivard have marked the history of Para-swimming in Canada in their own way. At 25 and 26 respectively, they still place performance at the center of their priorities. “But we have a lot less left than we had. You have to appreciate and benefit from the experience. »

“I’m approaching it with much more zenitude and lightness than last year. We have a lot of experience, we try to rely on that. […] You also have to see it as the first year of a three-year cycle,” explains Rivard.

On the way to Paris

The two veterans therefore have the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games in their sights. Which was far from certain just a few months ago, at the end of a trying sequence punctuated by the Tokyo Games.

She always wants to surpass herself, store as many memories as possible and above all become fully aware of the privilege she has had of swimming at a high level for fifteen years. “When it’s a chore, when it’s ugly, when it’s no longer fun, I think that’s going to be a sign that I need to move on. »

For his part, Turbide quickly sums up his decision: “It’s because I really like it, it’s as simple as that. “He is still fueled by training and it is essential for him not to ask too many questions.

Both swimmers want to take one step at a time, because it’s easier and above all healthier. “To have to start again this year, to update our objectives, to see where we are at. We adjust according to what will happen and then we will see. For both of us, it’s a solution that works well for now,” says Turbide.

“We are basically swimmers, we still like it and we think our place is still here,” adds Rivard.

For now, the next stop is in Portugal and they have every intention of picking up where they left off in Tokyo.