The 14-year-old age-group star swimming out of Scottsdale Aquatic Club, Taylor Ruck, broke her second Canadian age-group record of the day at the Arena Pro Swim Series stop in Austin en route to a fourth place finish in the 100m backstroke final.
Ruck went into the meet with a personal best time of 1:06.14 from sectionals last season, however dropped a 1:02.37 to break the previous 13-14 Canadian age-group mark that was held by Florida Gator Sinead Russell.
Following the massive time-drop from prelims, Ruck came into finals and had an absolutely stellar performance. She once again took a large chunk off her time to post a swift 1:01.25, beating rising Canadian backstroke star 16-year-old Danielle Hanus in the process.
Ruck turned in third place behind fellow Canadian and Oakville Aquatic Club swimmer Dominique Bouchard who eventually won the race, and multi-time Olympic gold medallist Natalie Coughlin.
Multi-event star Katinka Hosszu passed her on the final 50 leaving Ruck out of a medal position, however Ruck was still a 31.24 on the last 50 (the third fastest last 50 split of the field) solidifying her Canadian record performance.
Her time in-fact wasn’t far off the Canadian record in the girls 15-17 year-old category held by Sinead Russell at 1:00.57.
The time for Ruck makes her the eighth fastest Canadian of all time in the event. Ruck also broke the 200m backstroke Canadian record earlier in the meet.
She was born in Kelowna and lived there until she was 10 months old.
I know for a fact she lives in Kelowna for up to 2 months every summer and 1 month every winter and sometimes has trained with the Aqua Jets. She has yet to race in Canada.
Has she ever even been to Canada?
What is USA cut?
1:00.50, held by a certain M Franklin.