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Gabor wins bronze in Stockholm

In July at the biggest swim meet outside of the Olympics, the World Aquatic Championships in Rome, Whitehorse Glacier Bears swim team member Alexandra Gabor took home a top-20 finish.
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In July at the biggest swim meet outside of the Olympics, the World Aquatic Championships in Rome, Whitehorse Glacier Bears swim team member Alexandra Gabor took home a top-20 finish.

This week she continued to show why she deserves to be ranked among the best in the world.

Competing at the FINA World Cup meet in Stockholm, Sweden as a member of Team Canada, Gabor, 16, produced personal best times in three out of her four races, one of which gave her a bronze medal in the 200-metre freestyle on Tuesday. She also finished 30th in the 50 free on Tuesday, and then 16th in the 100 free and 13th in the 400 free on Wednesday.

“I feel really good about my results, three out of four personal best times in Stockholm and a bronze in the 200 free is a really great start to the circuit and I just hope that I can keep it up for this meet in Berlin and improve on it,” wrote Gabor in an e-mail to the News.

“As far as the 400 free, I am pretty disappointed in it, but there are a lot of things I can improve on and fix in time for this meet to make it a lot better.”

Not only did Gabor set another BC Swim record in her 100 free performance, bringing her career total to 64, she set her third Canadian age group record for 15-17 in the race, with a time of one minute, 55.06 seconds. Since March, she has set a total of 34 BC Swim records, which include Yukon swimmers.

Competing against some of the fastest swimmers in the world brings out the best of her ability, wrote Gabor.

“I think the amazing level of competition stands out most for me from that meet,” she wrote. “It was a very, very fast field to compete against, and it really did raise my game - and by quite a few levels! It helps me, and I’m sure a lot of other swimmers on the team, realize that you need to be on your A-game right from the very get-go, and there’s no room for complacency in the preliminaries, because there’s always someone else that’s willing to push a little bit harder and maybe that complacency will cost you a spot in the finals.”

Gabor is currently in Berlin for another FINA meet taking place Friday and Saturday. Although only one day separates the two meets, Gabor hopes to raise her game even further.

“I’m feeling very good going into the Berlin meet,” wrote Gabor. “I know that there are things that I can improve on in my races to help me get into finals. Since Berlin has always been the fastest meet on the World Cup circuit, and you need to bring your A-plus game, not just your A game, because that probably won’t be fast enough to make a second swim here!”

In August, Gabor made headlines in the territory by winning four medals, including two gold, as part of Team Yukon at the Canada Summer Games in PEI. Before this year, the Yukon had only ever won two medals at the Summer Games, both in cycling.

Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com