It's an exciting time for North Bay Titans swimmer Albert Bouley.
The 15-year-old has had an impressive season that has allowed him to qualify for the Canadian National Swimming Championships taking place this week in Montreal.
"I am pretty excited for this opportunity to go to Montreal and compete in a national level swim meet," Bouley told BayToday.
Bouley's journey to the top of his sport is unique. The Chippewa secondary student was training hard as a swimmer while also playing U16 AAA hockey with the North Bay Trappers.
Matthew Fallowfield is the North Bay Titans' head coach. He only started training Bouley this year, and he says the improvements throughout the year have been significant.
"I guess the first little bit of time I worked with Albert was both of us balancing the sports, I could tell he had a love for hockey but I could also tell he had a big talent for the pool in swimming," said Fallowfield.
"At the time I started coaching him I don't think he had any provincial times, was strictly a regional level swimmer but I could tell by his abilities in the water that if he were to train more and focus more on swimming he could become a very high-level athlete."
Fallowfield believes something really started to click in March.
"I think things started to get more serious in the pool and I think his parents wanted him to commit more to the sport of swimming over hockey and he dove into a regional meet and made a provincial cut just out of nowhere," explained Fallowfield.
"It was just a junior provincial cut at the time and then we went to a provincial competition that was offered this year and he dove into that one and made the provincial time and the eastern time. Easterns is basically a national competition but it involves only the eastern part of Canada. He did not make the next level of qualification but he did take off some time."
Fallowfield says at the next meet which was junior provincials long course, he dove into his preliminary event and made the Canadian national junior time and only a half a second behind the Olympic trials time.
Bouley swims the 100m Freestyle, 50m Butterfly, 100m Butterfly in time trials along with the 50m Freestyle on Sunday and is seeded top 10 in this event with a strong potential to make the final.
Fallowfield believes Bouley has what it takes to excel at this level of competition.
"He is looking really fast in the pool right now and knowing him anything can happen and I think if he puts his mind to it he can accomplish the time and he can accomplish the time and rank actually top-five at this competition if he has a good race," he said.
"I am excited to see what he can do at this high-level competition."
Bouley, who took some time on a family vacation in Czechia to train with a coach with the Olomouc swim team in his mother's hometown, credits his coach in the pool and his coach on the ice, Guy Blanchard for helping him become a better athlete.
He also says his parents and former Battalion coach Stan Butler have helped him along the way.
"I just tried to work hard and try to do my best through all the training and all the practices I could go to."
