Remember this name: Ally Goldring. The fourteen-year-old Muskoka Aquatic Club (MUSAC) swimmer is making waves and has set some big goals for herself. This likely won’t be the last time you hear about her.
Most recently, Goldring broke a long-standing MUSAC record in the 200m IM, took gold at OFSAA, the provincial high school championships, in the 100m Breast – competing against students up to grade 12 and achieving her fastest time yet at 1:11.65 – and is neck and neck with another swimmer to take qualifying honours for the Canada Summer Games.
In short course (25m pool), she is ranked first in the province for 50m Breast, 100m Breast and 200m Breast; nationally she’s ranked fifth in 50m and 100m Breast and sixth in 200m Breast.
She has qualified for the Eastern Nationals – happening this weekend (April 20-23) – and the Canadian Junior Nationals, and is hoping to get qualifying times for both the Canada Games and the Senior Nationals.
If all of that isn’t enough, she holds 15 MUSAC club records and one Huronia Regional record.
And she takes all of that success in stride.
“She is the perfect combination of confident and humble,” says her coach Morgan Kierstead. “I think she gets nervous but the expectation of performance is not too much for her.”
In her three years of coaching Goldring, Kierstead has seen her progress from “middle of the pack” provincially to now being ranked first in the province. “She is such a hard working kid – she’s dedicated and committed. I haven’t seen a swimmer in a long time who is as much of a full package as Ally is… It’s been great to see her grow and flourish in the sport and become the elite level athlete she is now.”
As a senior elite swimmer, she trains 14.25 hours each week in the pool and does 1.5 hours of dryland training. She also coaches MUSAC’s pre-competitive group – the “minnows”. “She’s a great role model to all of the other swimmers on the team,” says Kierstead.
MUSAC’s previous 200m IM record of 2:28:83 was set in 1989 by Bev Wicks, Goldring’s assistant coach. Goldring beat that record by more than a second with a time of 2:27:59 and Wicks was there to witness the accomplishment.
“She’s a really talented and dedicated young lady,” says Wicks. “She worked hard and was excited to undertake the effort to break the record. It was fun for me to watch it. I was so excited for her.”
The meet where Goldring broke the record was her last opportunity to do it. She learned that she was close to breaking the record at her previous meet, but didn’t quite make it there. “It became a bit of a challenge for her. It was a joke that she was going for my record and she missed it and I gave a fist pump and said, ‘Yes! I still hold one’,” laughs Wicks. But Ally was determined to break the record before she moved into the next age category and lost her chance. “It was a goal of hers that she was going to take it down. I knew she would, it was just a matter of when.”
At the next meet, Goldring wasn’t scheduled to swim the 200m IM event so she requested a last-minute deck entry. “She really wanted it and I was really proud of her,” says Wicks. “It couldn’t have gone to a better person or swimmer. She’s very talented and she has a great future in swimming ahead of her.”
Coach Morgan Kierstead says Goldring’s future looks bright. “In her near future, I see her qualifying for Canadian Senior Championships – which is the fastest 400 swimmers in the country regardless of age group and gender. I’m hoping she will reach those times by the end of summer which means she will be able to compete at Senior Nationals on August 4 in Montreal. Beyond that, the possibilities are limitless for her.”
Goldring has set some big goals for herself. “I’m hoping next year to qualify for World Trials,” she says. Her current time is just 0.8 seconds off the qualifying time. “And maybe be swimming with another team in Toronto. Long-term, I’d like to be on a university team or maybe the Olympics.”
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