By Charlie Pinkerton
A pair of Go Capital Synchro athletes make up the Ottawa contingent that will compete in the pool at the Canada Winter Games.
Ottawa-native Jade Warren and Waterdown-import Emma Fox will swim together in duet and team competitions for Ontario.
Warren took after her mother and got involved in synchronized swimming (which the international governing body for the sport started referring to as artistic swimming in 2017) when she was nine, after she became interested in the sport while watching other athletes practice it during her swimming lessons.
“Before I started synchro, swimming was always my favourite thing, even just in my pool in my backyard,” Warren said.
She started swimming competitively for Nepean Synchro and cracked her first provincial team at 12 years old.
After switching clubs to GO Capital, she began competing nationally as a member of Canada’s age 13-15 team in 2016 and 2017. Last year she picked up a gold and a bronze medal as a member of Team Canada at the UANA Pan American Championships and finished in 4th place in the solo competition at the Canadian Championships for artistic swimming.
“Synchro just really combined the challenge for me of how hard it is, with the music aspect and swimming – so just everything I love,” Warren explained.
Warren and Fox swam together at the provincial level before Fox moved to Ottawa, but only paired up as a duet once Fox started her schooling at Carleton University and found a new home at GO Capital.
The 16-year-old Warren says it “doesn’t feel like” Fox is two years older than her since they get along so well in and out of the pool.
“Sometimes I get really stressed at competitions and from past experiences I know that (Emma) will be able to calm me down. She definitely gives me confidence and we know what we need from each other to perform well, so I’m really lucky to have her,” Warren said about their pairing.
Outside of the pool, Warren says she’s looking forward to meeting other athletes at the Games, watching other sports and enjoying herself at the event, which is structured to have an Olympic-village-like feel.
“I’m excited for all of that. … It just seems like it’s a really well organized, big competition and I’m really excited,” Warren said.
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