By Rebecca Cheverton

Young Canadian open water swimmer Kate Sanderson is gearing up for another big summer. The 21-year-old Toronto native is set to swim the 10-km race this weekend at the FINA Olympic Marathon Swim Qualifier in hopes of qualifying for her first Olympic Games.

Sanderson was one of two pre-selected athletes to attend the FINA Olympic Marathon Swim Qualifier by finishing as the highest placed Canadian female in the 10-km event at 2019 FINA World Championships.

“I am excited and grateful to be in Portugal and that the qualifier is going ahead this week,” said Sanderson.

Sanderson spent most of her years growing up living and training all over the world. At age three her family moved to Indiana, where she began swimming. By age 11 she was showing a lot of promise in the sport when her dad got a work opportunity that moved the family to Abu Dhabi. Sanderson, determined to keep swimming, had to find opportunities on her own to train as there were few pools that would allow women to swim unrestricted.

A year later, the family moved again to Qatar, where Sanderson found a more established swim program that would take her swimming to the next level. In 2015, the family moved once again, this time to Colorado Springs, where in 2017, she qualified for a U.S. junior national team.

As a dual Canadian and U.S. citizen, Sanderson had to decide which country she would want to represent internationally. The Canadian native decided to go with her roots and try her shot at the Canadian national team.

In the spring of 2018, Sanderson came up to Montreal and competed in her first Canadian competition, the 2018 Canadian Swimming Championships, where she qualified for her first national team to represent Canada at the 2018 FINA World Junior Open Water Championships. That same year she also qualified to represent Canada at the 2018 Pan Pacific Championships qualifying in both the pool (1500m) and open water (10-km) disciplines.

The following year, Sanderson, came first at the 2019 Canadian Open Water Swimming Trials and qualified for her FINA World Championships debut, where she finished 24^th in the 5-km, 35^th in the 10-km and 13^th in the 5-km relay open water races.

In the fall of 2019, Sanderson, decided to make another move and come back to Canada to train at the High Performance Centre – Vancouver with fellow open water teammates.

“Training with the open water group at HPC-Vancouver has been beneficial,” said Sanderson. “Everyone works really hard and it is nice to all be working towards the same goal.”

The COVID-19 pandemic brought on challenges for the open water group by cancelling and postponing competitions, including the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. This weekend will be the first time the group has competed since 2019. For a young athlete like Sanderson though, this gave an extra year to keep improving to better her chances at making her Olympic debut.

“I have navigated this year by focusing on each day one at a time,” said Sanderson. “The focus has been the same with the extra year. Getting ready for the qualifier.”

The female 10-km at the FINA Olympic Marathon Swim Qualifier takes place Saturday at 4 p.m. local time.

For more information on the event please click here: https://www.fina.org/competitions/8/fina-olympic-marathon-swim-qualifier-2021