Smashing day

Lindsay Puhlaski needs some new goals and she’s only 10.

Over the weekend, the Thunderbolts’ swimmer smashed three club records, some that have stood near the Canada Games Complex Pool for more than 20 years. During the 41 st annual May International Swim Meet Puhlaski broke the under 10 girls’ 50-metre fly, 50-metre backstroke and 800-metre free records by more than two seconds each.

“It feels pretty nice,” a smiling Puhlaski said as she talked about staring at those records every day as she went into the pool to train.

“I really worked hard.”

But Puhlaski isn’t one to rest on her laurels. She’s already thinking about swimming faster so she can break more records as she gets older.

“I always wanted to be remembered as somebody and to have a goal and to break the goal,” she said.

12-year-old Abby Mulligan broke two Thunderbolts’ records of her own over the weekend, one that has stood for nearly 40 years. Her name will be on the wall for breaking the 11 and 12-year-old girls’ 50-metre and 100-metre freestyle times.

“It’s really exciting to do that,” Mulligan said. “It means that I accomplished my goals.”

While the two want to keep swimming and hope to reach events like the Olympics, they both say they swim because it’s fun and they love it, something coach Stu McLean said is the main reason for kids to do it.

“You want to make sure they’re having fun and enjoying it because that’s going to be the ultimate reason they stick around,” he said.

“If they keep working hard and they keep having fun with it there’s no reason to think that they can’t be on the radar somewhere someday.”

Plus, McLean promised Puhlaski a cookie if she broke the 50-metre fly record, something she hadn’t had a chance to collect yet.

“But I will,” she said.