HIGH ACHIEVERS: Carleton’s Finn Tuck rediscovers swim career, breaks 5 Ravens records

By Martin Cleary

It has taken five years, but Finn Tuck feels like he has finally become a university swimmer with a list of accomplishments that brings a smile to his face.

And it all happened in one swim meet last weekend, Ontario University Athletics’ Dean Boles Divisional short-course championships at Brock University in St. Catharines, ON.

After four years of enduring practice restrictions and meet postponements because of the COVID-19 pandemic, putting academic classes ahead of training sessions and an out-of-town co-op assignment that kept him out of the pool for almost 1.5 years, the fifth-year Carleton University student-athlete is swimming fast and tearing up the record book.

When Tuck, 22, came out of the pool for the final time at the two-day Dean Boles meet, he had broken four individual Carleton varsity swim records and was part of a fifth, met the U Sports national championship qualifying standards for two races and came close in another two, won four medals (two gold, one silver, one bronze) and swam four personal-best times.

The Carleton Athletics department recognized his achievements and named him the Ravens’ male athlete of the week for the period ending Nov. 26.

“I’m feeling I’m actually a swimmer now. I’ve made it somewhere,” Tuck, a fifth-year aerospace engineering student-athlete, said in a phone interview this week.

Before enrolling at Carleton, the Port Perry, ON., resident had competed at Ontario youth championship meets, but not on the national scene.

“My whole swimming career at university has been lacklustre with COVID, busy with classes and no practices,” he added. “So, I reduced my course load and I was able to put the work in at practices. I had real drive last weekend.

“In previous years, other teammates had qualified for U Sports (national championships). One of my best friends went to U Sports. I wanted to prove to myself that I was worthy, too.”

Tuck certainly proved that on the weekend by making the U Sports time standards in the men’s 100- and 200-metre backstroke. He narrowly missed in the 50-metre backstroke and the 100-metre freestyle, but he’ll have other opportunities in the rest of the season and at the OUA championships in February.

The key to his swimming success actually was a major academic adjustment. He decided to split his fifth year of aerospace engineering into two years. By taking three courses this year and next year, he’s still considered a full-time student and can compete in the varsity swimming program.

Tuck, who is only in his third year of athletic eligibility in 2023-24 and has another two years remaining, is currently training about 20 hours a week based on 10 swim sessions and two weight-room workouts.

As a freshman in 2019-20, Tuck had a good season, helping Carleton to a pair of seventh-place relay results and two individual B finals in the backstroke at the OUA championships. But when COVID-19 struck in March, 2020, the U Sports championships were postponed.

He didn’t swim the 2020-21 season because of the pandemic and trained with his former Uxbridge High School team, when the pool was available.

In 2021-22, he continued to take his Carleton courses online and his busy schedule greatly affected his ability to attend swimming practices.

For his fourth year, a co-op assignment took Tuck to Montreal to work for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Swimming was out of the equation.

When Tuck started his fifth year at Carleton in September, he had been away from swimming for 16 months. But there was still a fire burning inside as he wanted to prove to himself he could be proud of his university swimming career.

“Coming back was definitely tough,” explained Tuck, who prepared for a return to the pool by training in the gym and lifting weights. “I felt strong, but when I dove into the water it was hard to get moving. All my cardio was gone.

“Our coach (Nico Belisle) eased us back into the hard practices. It was about one to 1.5 weeks before I was in good shape. I always wanted to come back, since my university career, up to this point, was jagged. I didn’t feel accomplished. I wanted to give it one last shot.”

A tri-meet with the University of Ottawa and the University of Waterloo to test fitness and speed earlier in November didn’t do much for Tuck’s confidence.

But this opening race at the Dean Boles meet, the men’s 4×50-metre freestyle, set him on fire.

While he anchored the Ravens to a fifth-place finish in one minute, 37.90 seconds, he was uplifted by the energy of his teammates and his peers on the pool deck. It stayed with him for almost the entire meet.

“It (relay) was very quick, there was a lot of energy on the pool deck and the energy really hyped me up,” he said. “I felt I had a good mindset. I usually get nervous before races. But knowing I had good speed and friends who helped to calm my nerves, I focused on my technique and had a calm state of mind.”

Twenty minutes after the relay, Tuck was on the start blocks for the 50-metre backstroke. He placed second for the silver medal in the two-length sprint in a Carleton record 25.98 seconds, which missed the U Sports standard by 0.06 seconds. His time erased the previous Carleton record set by John Mills at 26.23 seconds in 2004.

Tuck finished the first day by swimming a steady 200-metre backstroke and posting a gold-medal winning time of 2:01.78, which met the U Sports criteria and smashed the Carleton record set by Ken McDonald at 2:04.20 in 1997.

His second day of the meet started with the 4×50-metre medley relay and he swam the opening 50-metre backstroke leg, hoping to achieve the U Sports standard. Tuck’s split of 26.31 seconds was shy of making the grade for nationals, but it set the Ravens off on a course to the bronze medal in 1:46.64.

“I was half a second short. It was kind of disappointing. It knocked down my mood a bit,” he recalled.

In his only individual final on the last day, Tuck raced his good friend Julien Legault from Brock University and took the lead at the halfway point of the men’s 100-metre backstroke. After an awkward start, he worked hard to win in 55.37 seconds, which broke his own Carleton record of 56.39 seconds from 2022 and qualified him for U Sports nationals.

For his final race, the men’s 4×100-metre freestyle relay, he asked coach Belisle to swim the opening leg to get an official time and chase another U Sports standard.

While he missed the standard by 0.08 seconds, his opening 100-metre freestyle time of 50.49 seconds broke the Carleton record of 50.74 seconds, which was set by Thomas Leung in 2016. The time also lowered his personal-best clocking by two seconds.

When Tuck, Rhys Martin, Jack Lu and Luc Landry finished fourth in the relay in 3:31.46, they broke the 1988 record of 3:32.09.