One day, she hopes, she’ll be the best in the world.
For Whitby’s Anne Ottenbrite that may not be a difficult goal to achieve.
As a member of the Canadian national swim team, the shy, quiet 16-year-old recently captured a bronze and silver medal in the world aquatic championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
She captured the silver in the 100-metre breaststroke and the bronze in the 200 metre breaststroke.
Ottenbrite also holds the Canadian and Commonwealth records in three events, having swam the 100-metres in 1 minute 11.03 seconds and the 200-metres in 2 minutes 33.19 seconds.
She will soon be off to Edmonton, Alberta, where she will swim in the try-outs for the Canadian national team that will take part in the Commonwealth Games to be held in October in Brisbane, Australia. Since she has already made the team Ottenbrite will then be off to San Francisco, California for two days of sight-seeing before heading out to Hawaii for training camp.
Although she is a breaststroke specialist (“It’s just about all I can swim,” she says), her coach has started her training for the I.M. event, which is a race in which the swimmer swims the breaststroke, backstroke, fly and freestyle.
It is not known if she will enter the I.M. event at the Commonwealth Games.
The Grade 11 Henry Street High School student trains at her sport for at least three hours a day aside from actual swimming, also has to lift weights and do various exercises under Coach Pat Meronen.
Ottenbrite has only been swimming competitively for four years but learning how to from her father Joe.
“My dad taught me to swim,” she says, adding that she tried other sports but found she didn’t like them.
“Then I tried competitive swimming and I like that.”
Most 16-year-olds have an active social life, but the demands of her sport do not give Ottenbrite one, but she doesn’t miss it. “When I go to swim, I don’t feel I’m missing that much,” she says. “I can’t do as much as the other kids.”
However, swimming has its own rewards.
“It’s something to look forward to when I go to meets,” she says.
Otttenbrite will be part of the 14-man, 12-woman team representing Canada under the direction of head coaches Tom and Dave Johnson.
After winning her medals in Ecuador not only did Ottenbrite receive a bouquet of flowers from Mayor Bob Attersley on behalf of the Town of Whitby, but she also received a congratulatory telegram from Hugh Gibson, the president of the National Sports and Recreation Association.
After the Commonwealth Games, Ottenbrite’s next target is the 1984 Olympic Games which will be held in Los Angeles, California where she will get the chance to take on the world’s best.
“I would like to be, sometime in my swimming career, the best in the world,” Ottenbrite said, with a quiet confidence that leaves one with the impression that is exactly what she is going to be.
