“The whole world is there!” This week, Concordia student Marie-Lou Morin is competing in the 16th FINA World Championships. | Photo courtesy of Marie-Lou Morin
At the 2015 Pan American Games
Marie-Lou Morin: from the Pan Am Games in Toronto to FINA in Kazan
Although Morin and her eight teammates may have wanted to spend some more time in Toronto drinking in the atmosphere after their big win, they packed their bags and left the following day for a training camp in Slovakia.
They had other fish to fry. Morin describes the 16th FINA World Championships, which runs from July 24 to August 9 in Kazan, Russia, as “the biggest competition of them all.”
“The whole world is there!” she says.
On Saturday, July 25, Morin and her team qualified for the finals of the technical team event, scheduled for today.
The preliminary round of the free team event takes place on Tuesday, July 28; then, the combination team final is on Saturday, August 1. “It’s the toughest and longest competition, since we have preliminaries for each routine and the meet extends over eight days.”
After the 16th FINA World Championships
After a hard-earned post-Kazan holiday, the Concordia student is looking forward to resuming regular pool practise. “We’ll start training for the Olympic qualifications in March 2016,” she says. "It’ll be our final fight to get our spot.”
Currently on a break from her studies in Business Management at JMSB, Morin will resume classes next year.
Balancing schoolwork with six swimming practices a week has proven challenging: “The best way is really to be organized and have a detailed schedule when there is a lot of work or studies to be done.”
If Morin’s pre-Pan Am Games training schedule is any indication of what’s in store, the next eight months will be very busy. “We trained 10 hours a day, four times a week, and then six hours the other two times."
Still, it's all worth it: "It was really intense training, but it paid off!”
Find out more about the management program at the John Molson School of Business.
Follow Marie-Lou Morin and the rest of the Canadian synchronized swim team at the 16th FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia.