An Okotoks swimmer was in a record-breaking mood in Minneapolis last weekend.
Twenty-year-old Kirstie Kasko swam to five gold medals, four personal best times, four-world championship qualifying times and established two world records and three Canadian records at the Can/Am Para Swimming World Championship Trials in Minneapolis, April 4-7.
“It was definitely one of my best meets,” Kasko said. “And I made worlds too so I’m pretty excited for it.”
The prolific meet booked Kasko’s ticket to the International Paralympic Committee World Championships, Aug. 11 to 17 in Montreal. It will be her first appearance at the international meet and it will be her biggest stage since her debut at the London 2012 Paralympics.
The Can/Am swim meet boasted many of the competitors from the London Games and featured the top para-swimmers from Canada, the United States, Mexico, Columbia and Russia.
However, in the S-14 category, for swimmers with an intellectual disability, Kasko was largely in a league of her own.
She picked up a gold medal in all three breaststroke swims (50m, 100, 200m) as well as in the 100m and 200m freestyle.
Kasko blitzed the competition by racing to the wall 11 seconds faster than her closest competitor setting a new Canadian record of 2:23.50 in the 200m freestyle.
“I went a 33 (in the first 50m) and then went a 36, 36, 36 back so it was pretty even,” she said. “I was pretty happy with that one.”
Kasko dominated the 200m distance as she established yet another Canadian record in the 200m breaststroke with a time of 3:12.51.
“The third 50 could have been a bit faster, but the other three were under 50,” she said. “I could tell that I was trying to lower the time as much as I could.”
Her time of 41.06 in the 50m breaststroke and 2:49.26 for the 200m individual medley, both of which occurred in preliminary morning swims set two world records in the S-14 category.
“I hadn’t swam (the individual medley) for a long time because it just started in Paralympics this year. It was a new event from London,” Kasko said. “In prelims I won by four or five seconds and then in finals I got disqualified for a stroke infraction at the turn.”
She then picked up a Canadian record by eclipsing her own benchmark of 1:27.90 in the 100m breaststroke by 0.13 seconds. She now ranks sixth in the world in the swim.
“I went a little too slow coming back, but it’s alright, I was way ahead of the pack,” said Kasko, who finished 12th in the swim at the London Paralympics. “I’ve been gliding a little more in practice where before I used to go all out with my arms and I’ve started to lengthen the stroke.”
The veteran of the London 2012 Paralympics switched teams this swim season to join the Cascade Swim Club in Calgary after spending several years with the Foothills Stingrays under the tutelage of head coach Todd Melton.
“I like the coaches (Wendy Johnson, Ildi Deliu) because they’re Olympians, but I really miss Todd,” said Kasko, who trains up to eight times per week with Cascade at the Talisman Centre. “At Cascade they’ve really been helping me with my stroke. In the butterfly and 200m individual medley I kick differently than I did last year. I’m starting to do it almost like a little whip-kick.”
As she prepares for her first taste of world championship competition, Kasko is setting the bar high for her Montreal.
“Really what I want to do is try to get as close to third place as I can,” she said. “I’m a little bit off in the 200m freestyle, about four seconds off, but I’ve taken five seconds off before at Guadalajara in 2011. So I think I can do it.”
