Canadian Hilary Caldwell set a Pan Am Games record on the way to winning gold in the women’s 200-metre backstroke on July 15.Al Bello/Getty Images
In Hilary Caldwell's official Swimming Canada bio, there is a notation about the 24-year-old from White Rock, B.C., that tells you, 'Her six tattoos make her the most inked member of the national swim team.' Since that publication went to press, however, Caldwell has added a seventh tattoo. It reads 'Make It So' – one of the inspirational mantras that her late coach Randy Bennett would deliver before his swimmers went into the water.
"We call them 'Randy-isms' – what my coach Randy used to say whenever we had meetings," Caldwell explained. "He'd say, 'Here's the goal – and make it so.' Bennett died of cancer in April at age 51, but his swimmers have followed his instructions wonderfully well thus far during the Pan American Games.
In the first two days alone, Canada won 13 medals, four of them gold. Caldwell contributed a victory in the women's 200-metre backstroke Wednesday night, finishing just ahead of teammate Dominique Bouchard in the event. It was the second time that night the Canadian women finished one-two, after Kierra Smith edged the veteran Martha McCabe in the 200-m breaststroke. Minutes before, Emily Overholt won silver in the women's 200-m freestyle, with teammate Katerine Savard narrowly missing the podium, finishing fourth.
Overholt and Savard were among the seven Canadian swimmers who qualified for one more finals set for Thursday night.
Going in, the Pan Ams represented a tricky logistical issue for the Canadian swim team as whole, given that a far more significant meet, the 2015 FINA World Championships, open half a world away in Kazan, Russia on July 24.
The temptation might have been to skip the event, so as not to interrupt their regular training cycle. Even Caldwell acknowledged she was a little hesitant coming into the competition.
"We've got world championships coming up," Caldwell said. "I didn't know how I was feeling about this meet necessarily. But then [Tuesday] night, we kicked off to such an amazing start, we were all a bit inspired. It was like, 'We're going to get going; and we're going to swim fast here.'"
And while Caldwell still has the 100-m backstroke left to swim Friday, Smith is done for this meet.
A day after winning gold, she was back on her regular training schedule, so she could refocus for the world championship. As a student at the University of Minnesota, Smith said he was used to swimming a tightly compressed competition schedule.
"We have a good week or two in Spain after this that'll help us get our emotions back in check," Smith said. "At this level, we're all pretty good at knowing we have something else coming up – and we're all trying to save our energy for that."
Smith also won the 200-m breaststroke at the Canadian trials, but was disqualified for a stroke violation – her elbow came out of the pool, which is against the rules. It was on her mind Wednesday in the morning preliminaries.
"I came in a little scared in the first 100, really self-conscious," she said. "Do you ever have the feeling that a thousand people are looking at your elbow? It's a weird feeling. It made me a little shaky. My coach said to me, 'I could tell you were a little anxious.' So tonight, coming in, I decided not to think about it and just focused on racing."
Whenever the 21-year-old Smith travels to meets around the world, she tries to collect a Starbucks mug from every city she visits. Part of her daily ritual is to have a coffee at 4 o'clock in the afternoon with her father, Andrew, a marathoner. Right now, she is up to about 60 mugs – "more than my cupboard can handle," she says. "So the collection's really building. It's so much fun. It's my favourite thing to do."
Caldwell, meanwhile, contents herself with collecting tattoos, the two most prominent of which are a mermaid on her upper left arm and the Olympic rings just below the elbow.
Caldwell actually made the previous Canadian Olympic team in 2012 and finished 18th over all in London. But one year later, at the world championship, she made a breakthrough, unexpectedly winning a bronze medal in her specialty, the 200-m backstroke, and lowering the Canadian record in each of the three rounds.
Back then, she was one of the team's young up-and-comers. Now, she is among the more senior members of the squad.
"It's definitely a progressively younger team," she said, with a smile. "All of a sudden, I feel like I'm the old one – which I hadn't really experienced before. But it's been great. In all the events, we're becoming deeper and deeper. All of a sudden in women's sprint, we've got this relay team that could medal in the Olympics next year, which is awesome."
According to Caldwell, the home-crowd advantage has been a legitimate factor in the Canadian team's success. Rarely does a meet of this magnitude ever occur here, which is why they are trying to take full advantage.
"It's fun to be at a meet where we can dominate in the pool, because we don't always have that when the A team for the States and the Australians are there," she said. "And it's cool to have the crowd behind. I've never experienced it like this. It's awesome. It was just 'don't get too excited on the first 50 and make sure they can help me coming home,' and they really did."
In addition to winning, Caldwell also set the Pan Am Games record Wednesday, but thinks she can go lower still in Kazan.
"It's definitely great seeing where I'm at now and hopefully I can be even better in a couple of weeks," she said. "That's the goal. Try to be fast this summer at [the] world championships and show them what we've got next year in Rio."