A New Brunswick swimmer’s dream of going to the Olympics is coming true.
Brooklyn Douthwright of Riverview is heading for the games in Paris in July.
“I’m super excited. I mean, making the Olympics has been my goal since I started swimming. So it’s been 12 years.”
Douthwright started her swimming career in Synchronized swimming when she was around six years old, but she says she always liked the warm-ups and swimming laps. When she was nine years old she joined the swim team and right from the beginning she knew she wanted to go to the Olympics.
She swam with the Codiac Vikings Aquatic Club based in Riverview, then with CNBO in Moncton and now attends school at the University of Tennessee where she has seen even more swimming success.
Since grade nine, Douthwright has spent up to 24 hours or more in the pool each week training,”It’s something that I love. I don’t really like taking breaks or anything. So it’s never been hard for me to go to the pool that often. And it’s always something that I’ve really enjoyed.”
But it meant time away from friends, family, and her two dogs, “Maybe I lost some opportunities but more than anything, it has given me so many opportunities. Like the places I’ve gone, the amount of people I’ve got to meet, and the friends that I’ve gotten from swimming have given me so much more than it has made me give up,” Douthwright says.
When it comes to motivation, she says just loving the sport has always kept her going, along with all of the friends she has met along the way.
General views from the 2024 Olympic & Paralympic Trials present by Bell at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre in on May 15, 2024 in Scarborough, ON (Michael P. Hall/Swimming Canada)
“Right now I swim at the University of Tennessee and I have 30 girls and 30 other guys that I train with all the time and it’s such a fun group, such a motivated group. So having a great group like that to train with every day. So many of them have similar goals to me. It doesn’t feel like something I have to do, it doesn’t feel like I have to go to the pool. It’s something I genuinely am excited to do and I get to do.”
Douthwright is spending a few days at home in Riverview, but she expects her training will intensify once she goes back to university later this week.
“Two months is a long time but also not that long before the Olympics. So super excited for training to pick back up and get back in the pool.”
As for her goals for the Olympics themselves, aside from coming home with a medal, she says the most important thing is putting everything she can into her performance.
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“Being a relay swimmer, you don’t know 100 per cent what relays you’re gonna get to be on until sometimes just the day before. That’s kind of a mental challenge. So, no matter what I swim, no matter when I swim, just putting everything I can into the race and putting everything I can into the next two months of training to give myself and my teammates the best chance.”
Douthwright has always been looked up to by the younger swimmers who wanted to be just like her. She is the first New Brunswick swimmer to make the Olympic team since Marianne Limpert in 2000.
We asked her if she has any advice for those young swimmers who also aspire to be on the Olympic team someday, “The biggest piece of advice is that it’s possible. Learn from my journey, what I’ve done and take it and try to use it and know that if I can do it, why not you? Just have fun, love what you’re doing, love competing, and go out there and give it your best shot. And you know if the Olympics is your goal, why not?”
