If Josiah Binnema ever makes it to the Olympics, he'll know all about international protocol and what's expected of him before and after his swim race.
He got the rock star treatment at the FINA world junior championships which wrapped up last weekend in Singapore.
"It was a six-day meet, and the longest I'd been to before was a four-day meet, it was a completely different environment and they were trying to get you to swim well, providing everything," said Binnema.
"Most meets, there's a huge clutter of swimmers behind the blocks and they fire off the heats as quickly as possible, whereas this, even for prelims they marshall you into a separate room and look at your cap and goggles and swim suit to see if they are regulation. They line you up according to heat and march you out and it's all planned out and it felt like a meet you'd watch on TV.
"The semifinal was really cool, they have you walk out one at a time and announce your name and you wave to the camera and turn around and there's your team cheering you on and you wave to them and the crowd."
The glare of the world spotlight brought out the best in Binnema. The 17-year-old former Prince George Barracuda set a new Canadian record in the 100-metre butterfly event and just missed advancing to the finals. He finished 11th out of 80 swimmers.
"The record was 53.92 (seconds) and I went 53.86 in the 100 fly semifinal," said Binnema, from his home in Edmonton. "That was the goal for this year, after my really good time at (world junior) trials."
That was the second day of competition. Earlier that day, Binnema raced in the 4X100 mixed medley relay and Canada (Danielle Hanus, Warren Mayer, Binnema and Rebecca Smith) placed sixth in 3:55.08. Binnema clocked 54.46 in the 100 fly.
He also competed in the 50 fly, posting a time of 24.86, 7/100ths of a second away from qualifying for semifinals. He ended the meet on Sunday as part of the Canadian men's 4X100 medley relay team with Javier Acevedo, Mayer and Markus Thormeyer. Binnema swam the butterfly leg in 55.31 and the team finished sixth in 3:44.12
"I swam very poorly in that, it was the last day and I was really feeling it by then," he said. "My coach tapered me for the start of the meet and by then end of it I was starting to lose some of my fitness. I swam the first half of the race the same speed that I did and should have gone but I didn't have the endurance at the end."
The 19-swimmer Canadian team arrived two weeks before the meet for a staging camp at a sport school, where they used underwater video cameras to record their practice swims, trying to pick out faults in technique.
"The coaching was really good, there were a lot of coaches paying attention to what you needed to work on and I felt I got a lot of attention - I feel I got a lot better with my dive and my turn," Binnema said.
"Usually I dive in and right off the bat I'm behind everybody but I worked on that a lot and in the 50 fly I dove and I was ahead of people, which was a great change. I've been able to get my stroke rate up a lot higher during the race. Before I would enter with my arms straight out in front of me and that would make me sink and slow me down a lot. So I've been working at staying higher in the water so there's less drag."
Binnema is now ranked fourth in Canada for his 100 fly. He's still not sure if he'll go to the CIS championships next April, where this year he helped the U of A beat UBC for gold in the 4X100 medley relay. He said many of the country's top swimmers won't be at the CIS meet and instead will focus on the Olympic team qualifying events.
Binnema is a long shot to make the team for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Canada's top seed in the 100 fly is Santo Condorelli of Kenora, Ont., who competes mostly in the U.S. and is among the all-time fastest swimmers at the University of Southern California. Condorelli's best in the 100 fly is 52.40.
"2020 in Tokyo is really the goal," Binnema said.
On Friday, three days after he got back from his trip, Binnema was still trying to shake off his jet lag , having spent the past month in Singapore. His classes at the University of Alberta started Sept. 1, while he was on the airplane. Binnema is in his second year at the U of A, majoring in psychology. His Golden Bears coach will be Derrick Schoof of the Edmonton Keyano Club.
Binnema says he's still too young to focus exclusively on butterfly. He resumes training on Sept. 17.
"I still have a pretty good 200 backstroke and Derrick wants me to get better at freestyle because it uses a lot of similar muscles to fly," Binnema said.
