PHOTO COURTESY OF ROCHELLE BIFFART
Rowynn Biffart stands with her gold medal in the 200m breast stroke at the Keyano International Alberta Series Finale on July 8 that punched her ticket to Nationals in Montreal.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Rowynn Biffart is a big fan of Canadian Olympic swimmer Penny Oleksiak, and the 13-year-old will get a chance to compete on almost the same stage as her idol.
The Medicine Hat product will compete at the 2022 Canadian Junior Swimming Championships in both the 100-metre and 200-metre breaststroke events next week in Montreal.
The 2022 Canadian senior championships will also be swimming alongside with the juniors in Montreal, meaning Rowynn might be able to meet Oleksiak and her other idols in the pool.
Biffart said, alongside Oleksiak, there are other Canadian swimmers she looks up to.
“I would love to have success like Penny and she’s such a great athlete too,” Biffart said. “But there’s also some really good athletes in swimming for breaststroke like Rachel Nicol that I also look up to, and think that they’re pretty cool.”
She qualified for the national championship with a win in Edmonton early in July. She said she enjoyed the competitive push she received in that meet from the other girls.
“It’s really cool when you have something like that because I knew the girl beside me was going to push me,” Biffart said. “In the 200-metre breaststroke I was in front and then in the 100 there was this one girl who I was racing beside and she was such a nice girl and so sweet. We just ended up pushing each other that whole weekend, especially in the 100 and the 200, so that was really fun.”
Aiding the Biffarts in their trip to Montreal is a GoFundMe page started by a fellow swim family, which had raised over $2,800 as of press time Thursday.
While Biffart was at swim practice Thursday morning with the Medicine Hat Waves program, she received a $1,000 donation from Oleksiak that came with words of support, “Let’s go Rowynn, my pups and I are cheering you on this summer,’ ‘keep training hard and can’t wait to see you standing on that podium.'”
She said one of her coaches got her out of the water to show her the news.
“I hopped out of the water and then he showed me how much we’ve raised so far and then he was like, but look at this and I saw Penny donated $1,000. It was just crazy. I was so happy,” Biffart said.
She said it meant a lot to her that Oleksiak would donate her money on top of sending her a message.
“She’s really down to earth of what I’ve seen and she’s just so sweet,” Biffart said. “It meant so much for her to send that message, to donate money and then send a message. Even sending a message would just be enough, but yet she donated money. So that was amazing, too.”
Biffart said she thinks so much of the swimming community and how all of the competitors are friendly with one another throughout competitions.
“They’re just like my family. You can talk to a swim person and understand where they’re coming from,” Biffart said. “It’s just always so funny because like you’ll be talking and then you guys just click, it’s just so much fun.”
Nationals will be Biffart’s first time in Montreal and she is excited enough that she has already packed for the trip. The competitions start Monday and her first swim is on Tuesday. On top of the 100- and 200-metre breaststroke swims, she is hoping to be able to get a time trial on her 200m individual medley swim because she’s close to the junior national time at that race.
The IM swim involves four different swimming strokes for a distance of 50 metres each, starting with butterfly, then backstroke, breaststroke and finishing with freestyle.
One of her goals is to make it on the podium on the national level but she says she’ll be happy as long as she’s having fun.
“If that doesn’t happen, I just want to take off some time and just have fun and race,” she said.
Her other goal, which she says would mean more than a medal, is to meet Oleksiak.
Biffart doesn’t have a lucky swim suit or cap that she dons in the water but said she has her lucky snacks she likes to eat before each races.
“They’re special granola bars. I don’t know, they are just granola bars, but I always feel like they just give me that little extra,” Biffart said.
