Local swimmer brings home the gold – six times

By Adelle Ellis, Times Reporter

For many young athletes, competing in a provincial competition and winning a gold medal is a dream.
For one local swimmer, that dream has come true with not one, but six medals in one provincial meet.
Thirteen-year-old Boston Marshman, a member of the Strathmore Silver Sharks swim club, came away from the 2019 Provincials – Long Course with six gold medals in each of the six events he competed in. The competition was held at the Brookfield Residential YMCA in Seton in Calgary from June 14 to 16.
“I was hoping that I was going to win one event or get another championship time, but I wasn’t expecting to do as well as I actually did. I was very nervous but I was super excited,” said Marshman who has now competed at four different provincial competitions for swimming in both long course (50-metre) and short course (25-metre) in the past three years.
Marshman, who has only been swimming competitively for three years, was able to beat the provincial time standards at different swim meets throughout the year to qualify to swim in 11 different events at the long course provincials. Regulations, however, only allowed him to enter a maximum of six different events.
“We have swim meets throughout the year and then all of your times for your events get recorded. They have provincial time standards that you have to beat… if you can go below (them) then you get to go to provincials,” said Marshman who chose to compete in the 50-metre freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke, 100-metre breaststroke and backstroke, and the 200-metre breaststroke events.
Marshman chose his events according to how close he was to beating the championship’s time standard. If he beat that time standard, it would allow him to compete at the Swim Alberta Summer Championships in Edmonton from July 4 to 7.
Marshman entered provincials having already beaten one championship time standard but he needed to surpass the time of a second to qualify to attend the next level of the competition, something he did on his first swim in the provincial preliminaries.
“It kind of took the pressure off him in that first event, knowing that ‘OK, I got my championship time and now I get go to,’ but he kept working hard at it and did the best he could every time,” said Jessica Marshman, Boston’s mom.
Not only did Boston win gold medals in each of the six events he competed in at the long course provincials, but he also received qualifying times to attend the championships this July in each of the six events.
“I’m trying to make the finals. My coach said that I have a good chance of making finals so I’m trying to do that… I’m hoping to make it in one, but if I could do every event that would be pretty good,” said Marshman, who added he has to be one of the top eight swimmers in each event during the preliminary rounds in order to compete in the final rounds at championships.
Not only is Marshman unstoppable in the pool, but he also excels in school – he’s a student at Crowther Memorial Junior High School – having just received an academic award of excellence honours for receiving an over 87 per cent average in all his core subjects in school.
Marshman continues swimming and practicing and improving, and hopes to try out for varsity swim teams in his Grade 12 year.