Haley Black will try to stroke her way back onto the junior national team this week in Victoria.
Black, a 17-year-old member of the Prince George Barracudas swim club, will be in the provincial capital Wednesday through Saturday for the Pan Pacific and Commonwealth Games Trials. The Pan Pacific portion of the trials will be used to form the Canadian junior team for the Pan Pacific championships, Aug. 27 to Sept. 1 in Kihei, Hawaii.
Last January, Black was part of a junior squad that represented Canada at the Victorian Open in Australia. With the Australian experience still fresh in her mind, she likes her chances for success this week.
"I still remember everything I learned there," said Black, who was a first-time member of the team. "Everything was beneficial and I'm still in a positive attitude from that.
"I feel really strong and in shape. I feel more confident than I would normally."
In Australia, one of Black's best results came in the 200-metre butterfly, a race in which she finished sixth overall. The 200 fly will probably give her the best chance to land on Team Canada for the Pan Pacific meet. To secure a spot, she said she'll probably have to trim two or three seconds off her current personal-best time of two minutes 15.47 seconds, which she set at the 2013 Canadian Summer Nationals.
Black will also try for a national-team qualifying time in the 100m butterfly. To post one, she'll likely have to lower her current PB of 1:01.50, a clocking that gave her second place in the B final (10th overall) in Australia.
In Victoria, Black will be reunited with several of the same athletes who were her teammates in Australia. They include Emily Overholt of West Vancouver, Lili Margitai of Edmonton and Frederique Cigna of Montreal.
"They've been pushing me and I've been pushing them," Black said. "It's a really competitive environment in the pool but not out of the pool."
Patricia Fortier of the Barracudas will also be in the water for the Pan Pacific trials. The 16-year-old Fortier said her goal is to advance to the A finals (top-eight) in the 400m individual medley and 200m backstroke. Last season, as a first-timer at the same competition, she fell short of making the A finals in any of her swims.
"My races were great and I had a lot of fun," Fortier said. "It was the biggest meet that I'd been to and it was such a wonderful experience.
"[I learned] not to get so nervous and not to get so uptight about it," she added. "I have to kind of calm down and relax."
Fortier's most satisfying result at last year's Pan Pacific trials was fourth place in the 400m individual medley B final (12th overall). In that race, she lowered her personal-best time by more than five seconds.
"It was my best race," she said. "I kept thinking I could see somebody ahead of me that whole race but there was nobody there. When I touched the wall I was like, 'Wow, that was awesome. I feel like going again.'"
In the 200m backstroke last year, Fortier was sixth in the B final, or 14th overall.
"It was really good too," she said. "I took off two seconds, which in that race for me is a lot. And I was racing my best friend [Jessie Gibson] and it was a great race between us."
For her age group, Fortier is currently ranked in the top 10 in Canada in the 200 backstroke.
The Commonwealth Games component of the trials is geared more toward senior athletes. The next edition of the Commonwealth Games is July 23 to Aug. 3 in Glasgow, Scotland.
