Watch: NWT swimmers take on two-time Olympian at YK’s pool

Maybe being a summer Olympic nation is better, Canada. Let’s start with swimming.

On Sunday, the NWT’s territorial swimming championships concluded with an ambitious contest: five of the territory’s top young swimmers in a 50m freestyle race against two-time Olympian Markus Thormeyer.

It is fair to say the outcome was at no point in doubt. “I was doing my flip turn, and I look back and he’s already done,” said Marlo Jenks of Inuvik’s Mackenzie Muskrats swim team. “I knew he was going to be a lot faster than me, but it was still kind-of like surprising.”

Even so, just the chance to be in the same pool as someone who raced for Canada at the Rio and Tokyo Olympics was as inspirational as it was daunting.

“Who knows?” Jenks added. “Maybe if I ever swim against another Olympian swimmer, I can do a bit better.”

Thormeyer, from British Columbia, won world junior gold in 2015 and world senior bronze two years later as part of Canada’s freestyle relay team. He and his men’s 4x100m freestyle relay teammates placed fourth at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

He told Cabin Radio he had come to Yellowknife at the invite of his friend Sam Barkwell, who now coaches the city’s swim team.

“Watching a meet like this, I haven’t done that in so long. It really does take me back to growing up,” Thormeyer said.

“But I grew up on the outskirts of Vancouver, so it wouldn’t be hard for me to go and see national-level swimmers. Coming up here, everyone has been so stoked and so happy to see me, and asking so many questions and everything. I really feel the energy and it feels great to be here.”

At territorials, swimmers score points based on their performances across three days of different disciplines and distances. Yellowknife, Hay River and Inuvik swimmers took part, with Inuvik bringing an all-female team to the event.

Yellowknife’s Ignat Tarskii and Josie Henry were the weekend’s top swimmers in the male and female 15-plus categories respectively.

“I had a lot of PBs. I’m happy with my times. I’ve been training really hard,” said Tarskii, who described his opportunity to line up against Thormeyer as a “really great experience.” Henry, too, described a weekend full of personal bests.

In the 13-14 age category, Yellowknife’s Omran Ghuneim won the male category and Hay River’s Belle Smith the female category.

Smith’s performances came despite feeling “really nervous the whole time, because there’s so many fast people in my category” – and also, she added, because she was once disqualified for accidentally doing the wrong stroke.

Jenks, who placed third in the same category, said she too had been nervous. “But I did warm up to it a bit after,” she said. “It definitely helps having a lot of people, like my friends, with me.”

The 11-12 category was won by Hay River’s Rudy Smith and Yellowknife’s Louisa Henry, while 9-10 was won by Hay River’s Carlaya Flett-Cook and Yellowknife’s Bruno Tarskii.

In the eight and under age group, two Yellowknife swimmers – Emily Money and Isla Maddeaux-Young – tied for first place in the female category. Yellowknife’s Rudyard Skrypnyk won the male category.

“Swimming, especially when you’re young, it should be fun,” said Thormeyer after taking part in the meet’s finale. (He instinctively looked up to the scoreboard for his time when he finished, only to discover nobody was counting.)

“Coming out here and seeing everyone having fun was really fun for me, too. So I’m really glad I made it out.”