THUNDER BAY – Three athletes from the Thunder Bay Artistic Swimming Club will be competing in August at the 2025 Canada Summer Games in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
Alexis Ball, Nathalie Biesenthal, and Chloé Winn will soon be competing for Manitoba, part of a 10-member artistic swimming team.
“I’m excited for actually competing and seeing all the other competitors that are there,” said Ball.
She said she's looking forward to working with the team and seeing routines from the other teams.
In artistic swimming, formerly known as synchronized swimming, athletes perform a routine set to music, combining swimming with elements of dance and gymnastics.
“This is my first-year swimming with Chloé, but it's my third-year swimming with Nathalie,” Ball said.
Biesenthal said she’s happy to swim with the two girls.
“It's really cool that three athletes from Thunder Bay are part of the team,” she said.
“We've been competing with Manitoba just because it's closer and it makes more sense for Thunder Bay,” Biesenthal said.
She said it’s been a pretty extensive training process.
“We've actually just had the past two weeks off from water training, but we just got back in yesterday and it's been nice to be back in the water. We're slowly picking it back up because in the summer we're going to be training eight hours a day, five days a week.”
Biesenthal said one of the routines has not been done with every athlete yet, and she’s excited to swim the routine with the entire team.
Chloé Winn said she has been swimming for 11 years.
“I was happy because I've been preparing and training for (this) for the past four years, so I was glad I made the team,” Winn said.
This will be the biggest competition Winn has attended in her 11 years swimming.
“I'm excited because it'll be fun to meet other people representing other provinces and the athlete’s village and I think it'll just be a very unique experience.”
Winn said it is a good feeling to have teammates to go along with.
“It's nice to know that other people are feeling the same thing, you know, we're going through the same training, so we'll probably all feel somewhat the same amount of stress, being just as tired, so it's nice to know that there's other people there as well.”
