Barbara Jardin – Training With Diabetes On The Road To Rio

EDITED BY COLEMAN HODGES AND MITCH BOWMILE

SHOT AND REPORTED BY MITCH BOWMILE

Barbara Jardin has been a member of the Canadian national time since 2009, when she first qualified to swim at the World Championships in Rome, representing Canada in the 200m backstroke.

Since then, her focus has largely changed to the 200m freestyle where she has made plenty of semi-finals on the international scene, including a 10th place finish at the London Olympic Games.

Her focus hasn’t just changed in terms of the event she swims, however, her focus has changed in the fact that her preparation for the upcoming Olympic Games is now completely different. Jardin was diagnosed with diabetes, something that kept her out of the water from August 2014 to January 2015.

Following her comeback to the pool, Jardin swam successfully at both the CIS Championships representing the University of Montreal, and the Canadian Team Trials. At Trials, Jardin managed to qualify for the FISU Games team, as did her coach Tom Rushton as part of the coaching staff.

Now, with limited training, Jardin’s focus meets for this summer will be the FISU Games in Gwangju, South Korea, as well as the Canadian Nationals. As soon as she 2015-2016 season starts up again, Jardin will not be heading back to the University of Montreal, but instead, putting full focus into dealing with diabetes and her Olympic preparation.

She and Rushton will go to multiple FINA World Cup stops in November before the real test kicks in: the 2016 Olympic Trials in Toronto.

Now, Jardin has started a fundraiser to help her with costs for the insulin pump that she needs. The pump will not only help her monitor her levels for practice so that she can prepare better for Rio, but it will help her in her day-to-day life.

To visit Jardin’s fundraiser and donate, click here.