By Mandy Poole
the Georgian
Katarina Roxon met her personal best times in five of the seven individual events she competed in at the Pan-Pacific Para International Swimming Championships last week in Edmonton, Alberta.
Winning one gold for the 100-meter Breaststroke, one silver for the 200-meter Individual Medley and two bronzes for the 50-meter Freestyle and 400-meter Medley Relay.
On the first day of the meet Ms. Roxon had two events and made the finals in both. She placed fifth in the 400-meter Freestyle with a personal best time and got a bronze medal in the 50-meter Freestyle.
The second day had Ms.Roxon competing in the 100-meter Butterfly where she placed fourth. On the third day she again placed fourth in the 100-meter Freestyle but with a personal best time - six seconds behind South African swimmer, Emily Gray.
Ms.Roxon went on to get a bronze medal that day, swimming as a part of the 400-meter Medley Canadian Relay Team.
Day four of the competition was met with a silver medal in the 200-meter Individual Medley, finishing four seconds ahead of Emily Gray who had beaten her in the 100-meter Freestyle the previous day.
The great news came on day five with Ms. Roxon having one of the best swims in the 100-meter Breaststroke where she won Gold at a personal best time of 1:27:02, putting her within reach of a podium placement in London 2012.
"Katarina did better than expected at this stage in her training. For some of the races we need to fine-tune our race strategy to be more effective. We will be doing that while we work on all the various aspects of racing," said head coach, Leonard Roxon.
"I feel good and am happy with the way I had performed in some of the events. I need to do better in all the events, especially the ones where I did not medal. I have only one year to get my speed up to compete with the very best in the world in London," said Ms. Roxon after the meet.
This week Ms. Roxon will do recovery training before beginning a more intense training program. She has more international meets to compete in this year before preparing for London 2012.
This International meet featured 190 top swimmers from 14 countries. This was considered a key competition and the last big event for the Elite Swimmers With A Disability across the globe before London 2012.
