SUBMITTED PHOTO
Rowynn Biffart poses with her first place medal after setting her Canadian National Trials Qualification standard at the 2023 KSC Invitational this weekend in Calgary.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Rowynn Biffart continues to shock her coaches and family as she rises up in the competitive swimming world.
After narrowly missing the standard in her morning preliminary race at the 2023 KSC Invitational in Calgary last Friday, the 14-year-old Hatter took first place in the 200m breaststroke final with a fast enough time of 2:42.75 that she achieved her first Canadian National Trials Qualification standard. In doing so, she booked her chance to compete at the 2023 Bell Canadian Swimming Trials and is projected to swim in the 2024 Canadian Olympic Trials.
Biffart, who swims with the Waves swim club, says she swam fingers crossed the whole race and remembers in detail seeing her time come across the board.
“I looked at the first number and it was two and I scrolled my eyes across and saw 42 and I was like, OK, that’s good. Now I just need to make sure it’s under .80,” Biffart said. “Then I saw the seven and thought, oh my gosh and then it was a five, so it’s point seven five and I was super duper happy.
“As I was doing that, my coach usually if you get a time or something he’ll do like a really loud whistle at the end, so then I knew that I got it. That was pretty awesome.”
Her coach Blair Hughes isn’t surprised with how well Biffart has done given the amount of work she does in and out of the pool. But says he wasn’t expecting her to qualify for the national event in that weekend meet.
“She swam in the morning and she was only nine hundredths of a second off of it, so it was quite the setup for the final session on that Friday evening,” Hughes said. “Everybody on the team was on their feet, cheering her on and it was a big gasp and a wait for the result to pop up on the board. Then sure enough, she had made it just under that mark. It was a pretty cool thing, everybody was a little bit emotional.”
The Bell Canadian Swim trials take place March. 28 to Apr. 2 in Toronto and the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic trials are May 14-19, 2024 in Montreal. According to Hughes, she will be the first from the club to qualify for the Olympic trials.
Biffart says it meant a lot to her having her teammates all watching her big race and is already looking forward to the first set of trials where she’ll face other swimmers in her level.
“I’m so excited, it’s going to be really cool and I know one of my good friends from another swim club will also be there at the trial, so that’s really exciting as well,” Biffart said.
In the last week of July 2022, Biffart competed at the 2022 Canadian Junior Swimming Championships in Montreal, finishing third in the 100m breaststroke preliminary and third in the final. She also finished third in the 200m breaststroke preliminary race and was 10th in the finals. She was the only 13-year-old in the 200m A-finals.
Hughes says what makes Biffart so successful at her young age is she’s a student of the sport and is dedicated to her craft.
“She very much looks at what else is going on in the swimming world and what other people in the province are doing,” Hughes said. “She’ll watch technical things and she’ll go on her own to do extra dry land or sometimes go get in the water on her own during a break or in the summer. She just has some really big goals and she’s doing what she can in the smartest way possible to achieve those.”
Biffart gives the credit to those who support her whether it’s her coach or teammates, friends and family or members of the public.
Her mom Rochelle says one of the managers from the Redcliff McDonalds sees her grandpa often and they talk about Rowynn’s swimming. The manager surprised them with a knitted blanket featuring the Waves Swim Club logo and her name on the top.
She’s also received support from the professional swimming community, with Penny Oleksiak at the nationals and then Olympic breaststroke swimmers Jason Block and Rachel Nichol, who have gave her advice.
“It’s so awesome, I really appreciate all this support and it just makes me so happy,” Biffart said.
