SANDRINE MAINVILLE
- University of Montreal
- 2nd Year
- Hometown: Boucherville, QC
- Studying: Law
- Height: 5-8
- Age: 22
MONTREAL FUN FACT: “Our coach on the team always brushes his hair with a lot of gel like Al Pacino does. So we call him Paci.”
Sandrine Mainville had an amazing CIS Championships last year, taking wins in the 50 and 100 freestyles to secure the Sprinters Cup, an award given to any swimmer who wins both sprint freestyles at the CIS Championships.
Mainville has been on the national team for some time now and is one of the top sprinters in the nation. Once again, she’s eyeing the sprinters cup. “My biggest goal this year is to win the Sprinters Cup as I did last year. My sister Ariane and I have another goal that we’ve set together, and that’s to finish 1-2 in both races.”
Ariane Mainville is another swimmer on the Carabins roster who like her sister has displayed nothing but speed. Both are pure raw white-fibre sprinters which should make their goal a very interesting one.
Sandrine Mainville’s training experience has been unusual compared to those of the average swimmers on a CIS team. Instead of training with the Carabins, Mainville has been training at HPC Ontario with Ben Titley’s squad at the new Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre.
“Last semester, I went to school at UofT as a visitor student. This semester I’m taking online courses via Université Laval. All my courses will be credited to Montreal for my law degree. I am a little bit all over the place right now, but I know it’s for the best. I am very lucky to be able to train at HPC Ontario and represent the Carabins at the same time”
Mainville is one of four high performance athletes currently training in Titley’s group. She’s joined by Zack Chetrat, Martha McCabe and former Ohio State Buckeye Michelle Williams.
Funny enough, Chetrat inspires one of Mainville’s favourite CIS memories. “My favourite CIS experience is not related to me, but it’s when Zack Chetrat won his 200m butterfly at the CIS Championships last year. It was his fifth win in five years of CIS competition. I remember when I saw his smile after the race thinking it was so inspiring.”
Although Mainville isn’t training with the Carabins, she’s still in the loop about how they’re performing and confident that they’ll have a very strong showing at the CIS Championships. “Our female team is very strong this year. We have 16 girls on the team compared to 12 last year. Our goal is to finish first and I think it’s achievable with all the good rookies who joined us this year.”
One of those rookies that Mainville mentioned happens to be one of the top flyers in the nation and the defending Commonwealth Games champion in the 100m fly, Katerine Savard. Savard will be swimming all three fly events and will be going head-to-head with Mainville in the 50m fly. Both of them have plenty of experience racing each other in this event. Last season, Mainville got the better of Savard at the Commonwealth Games and Pan Pac trials, winning the event by just over a tenth of a second.
“The 50m butterfly will be particularly interesting this year with Katerine Savard also swimming the event. For all the times we’ve raced this event together, I think we have each won the same number of times.”
Both athletes are favourites to make the 2015 World Championships roster, something that it Mainville’s main focus at the moment. She isn’t fully rested going into CIS, but was given a good enough taper to be able to have some good performances this weekend.
“There’s not as much pressure as Trials, so you just have to think about swimming fast; that’s all. The atmosphere is so great, all the teams are cheering at the same time and it makes it so exciting!”
