You may have this student in some of your classes, and you might even be friends with her. This student is a Barrie Trojan swimmer; she has been swimming competitively since she was 9 years old. Before she started competing, her parents got her into basic swimming. When they would go and watch her during her lessons, they saw how good she was at swimming. Since her parents were also competitive swimmers they wanted to have their daughter start competing in swim competitions. That’s how it all started for Allison Wadge.
Currently Allison is 16 years old, and is in grade 11. She used to swim for the Base Borden Barracudas. After 2 years of swimming with them she switched over to the Barrie Trojans. Allison transferred to Barrie Central at the start of grade 10 because of the Elite Athlete Co-op Program, which helps the swimmers with their swimming schedule. Since Allison has been at Central, she has started to think about her future in swimming. “I want to apply to universities in the States,” she said. Allison has already started to think about what she wants to do with all of this swimming experience; she wants to be able to apply for scholarships and get into as many universities as she can in the States. After graduating from university, however, she doesn’t really plan on swimming competitively any longer. “I just want to continue swimming for my personal fitness, and be able to start a family and spend time with them,” said Allison. Even though she doesn't plan on pursuing a career in swimming she still wants to be able to do what she loves the most.
Despite the fact that Allison enjoys swimming, it affects her personal and school life. She usually doesn't have enough time to do her homework, or even be able to do her group projects for school. On advantage to this that Allison noticed is that, “not having enough time to do my school work and assignments allows me to have the advantage of time management.” She would like to have more time to spend with her friends and family, because the only time that she is with them is during the weekends and travelling to and from swim meets and other sport events with her siblings. Spending time with her friends is usually hard for her, because she has after-school practices. Allison tries her best to balance the amount of time she spends with everyone; therefore she has lunch with her friends during school and makes the best of that time spent with them.
In addition to Allison trying her best to spend time with everyone, she also tries her hardest to improve on her swimming skills. She said, “it’s really hard not being able to achieve my goals during swimming for high performance, not being fast enough and knowing you have to try harder than you already are is difficult because I won’t be able to swim with the rest of the team during swim meets for high performance.”
As Allison was saying this, I was able to notice how hard she tries to achieve her goals in swimming and school combined. Anyone who thinks that swimming is an easy sport, will realize that it really isn't when you can’t spend enough time with your family and friends and not having enough time to do school assignments. Allison broke her wrist during the summer of 2013, so during the month of September she wasn't able to swim for 3 weeks. The injury made it harder for her to improve on the skills that she really wants to be better at.
Overall, she hopes to be able to achieve all the goals that she has set for herself in swimming. She plans on continuing swimming throughout university, and hopes to get scholarships for universities in the States. She wants to be able to compete in the Senior Nationals, through university. Allison has set high goals for herself, which I think that she will be able to achieve with no problem, seeing that she has a lot of experience and skills. After reading about Allison Wadge, I hope that you found out a lot more about her and her life with swimming.
By Nav Gill
Currently Allison is 16 years old, and is in grade 11. She used to swim for the Base Borden Barracudas. After 2 years of swimming with them she switched over to the Barrie Trojans. Allison transferred to Barrie Central at the start of grade 10 because of the Elite Athlete Co-op Program, which helps the swimmers with their swimming schedule. Since Allison has been at Central, she has started to think about her future in swimming. “I want to apply to universities in the States,” she said. Allison has already started to think about what she wants to do with all of this swimming experience; she wants to be able to apply for scholarships and get into as many universities as she can in the States. After graduating from university, however, she doesn’t really plan on swimming competitively any longer. “I just want to continue swimming for my personal fitness, and be able to start a family and spend time with them,” said Allison. Even though she doesn't plan on pursuing a career in swimming she still wants to be able to do what she loves the most.
Despite the fact that Allison enjoys swimming, it affects her personal and school life. She usually doesn't have enough time to do her homework, or even be able to do her group projects for school. On advantage to this that Allison noticed is that, “not having enough time to do my school work and assignments allows me to have the advantage of time management.” She would like to have more time to spend with her friends and family, because the only time that she is with them is during the weekends and travelling to and from swim meets and other sport events with her siblings. Spending time with her friends is usually hard for her, because she has after-school practices. Allison tries her best to balance the amount of time she spends with everyone; therefore she has lunch with her friends during school and makes the best of that time spent with them.
In addition to Allison trying her best to spend time with everyone, she also tries her hardest to improve on her swimming skills. She said, “it’s really hard not being able to achieve my goals during swimming for high performance, not being fast enough and knowing you have to try harder than you already are is difficult because I won’t be able to swim with the rest of the team during swim meets for high performance.”
As Allison was saying this, I was able to notice how hard she tries to achieve her goals in swimming and school combined. Anyone who thinks that swimming is an easy sport, will realize that it really isn't when you can’t spend enough time with your family and friends and not having enough time to do school assignments. Allison broke her wrist during the summer of 2013, so during the month of September she wasn't able to swim for 3 weeks. The injury made it harder for her to improve on the skills that she really wants to be better at.
Overall, she hopes to be able to achieve all the goals that she has set for herself in swimming. She plans on continuing swimming throughout university, and hopes to get scholarships for universities in the States. She wants to be able to compete in the Senior Nationals, through university. Allison has set high goals for herself, which I think that she will be able to achieve with no problem, seeing that she has a lot of experience and skills. After reading about Allison Wadge, I hope that you found out a lot more about her and her life with swimming.
By Nav Gill