With 12 very worthy and accomplished athletes to choose from, narrowing the field down to a single individual to crown as the 2016 Active Care Athlete of the Year was no easy task. In the end, swimmer Kierra Smith’s year of dominance in the pool was what shone brightest amongst a number of very bright stars.

“It’s such an honor,” said Smith. “My parents are so proud. I remember being named Athlete of the Month once in elementary school and it was so exciting for me. I still have that magazine at home -- my dad had gone all around the city to collect them. To win Athlete of the Year this year is such a big honor. It’s always exciting to represent Kelowna, and the support that I felt from the community growing up has really helped me get where I am today.”

Her prize money ($2,000) will help to keep supporting her journey in the sport of swimming, as she presses on through her final year of NCAA eligibility at the University of Minnesota, and aims towards the 2020 Olympiad in Tokyo, Japan.

Photo Credit: Contributed

“It’ll definitely go towards training,” Smith said. “Swim meet fees, equipment, and everything. I’m not really in a situation where I’m making money yet, so it’ll definitely help out so much. To get to the top of the podium in Tokyo, everything helps, and I think this will make a difference in this coming year. It means I don’t have to get a part-time job and that I can just focus on training. That’s where it’ll become so helpful.”

2016 was a year chock full of highlights for the Immaculata Regional High School graduate. She started it off by being named Swimming Canada’s female breaststroke swimmer of the year for her 2015 season accolades. She parlayed that selection into three gold medals at the Speedo Western Canadian Open in February.

After hitting the Olympic qualifying standards in April for both the 100-metre and 200-metre breaststroke, Smith was nominated and named to the Canadian Olympic team that would head to Rio in August. That Olympic qualification had been her major focus – Smith took the year off from her studies at U of M to concentrate on training to crack Team Canada’s Rio roster, a calculated risk that clearly paid off.

Her momentum carried next into June’s Mare Nostrum Tour in Monaco, where she collected another two gold medals in a Rio tune-up. Her long awaited Olympic debut was next in August, where Smith finished 19th in the 100m breaststroke, and advanced to the 200m final where she finished seventh. Smith capped off 2016 at the FINA World Swimming Championships in December, finishing fifth in 200m breaststroke with a time of 2:19:88 – more than three seconds quicker than her Olympic time.

“It was definitely a year full of nerves,” Smith recalled. “The lows felt lower than they actually were. I was pretty consistent the entire year, but the stress of it – when I had a bad practice or something it wasn’t really the end of the world, but it felt like it was in the moment because it was an Olympic year and there was so much leading up to that — definitely a lot of tears just from stress. I stepped away from school last year to focus on swimming, which let me really learn about myself as a professional athlete and about that lifestyle – I fell in love with the sport a little bit more.

One of the highest highs was definitely my parents getting to see me swim a few times — both my parents flew out to Rio, and my swim coach Emil (Dimitrov), and my Grade 2 teacher from Kelowna (Pauline Kanovsky from St. Joseph’s Elementary School) flew out too. It really meant so, so much to represent a community that has supported me so well. To have Emil and my parents there to celebrate the success with was fantastic. They deserved it just as much as I did. Everyone’s worked so hard, for so long with me, and to be able to perform at the highest level like that really meant a lot.” Looking back on it months later, Smith is just as proud of her Olympic performance as her coaches, family, and Kelowna fans were while watching her compete either in person or on TV. The advantage of retrospect is that she can actually take the time to enjoy those moments now.

“Looking back on it, I am so proud of what happened,” said Smith. “In the moment, you make the Olympic team which you’ve prepared your whole life for, and then your coach texts you to say, ‘you’re getting in the pool in four days to train, right?’

“You don’t get to celebrate it. And then you get to the Olympics and go to prelims and you’re like, ‘this is it, this is my moment!’, and then you make semis and you can’t celebrate that either because you have to make finals that night, and then you get to finals and you’re like, ‘I’ve made an Olympic final!’ but you don’t get to celebrate that, you keep going and go for the podium in the final.

“Coming seventh, it just wasn’t as exciting a moment as it could have been. Everyone could have been on the podium, it was all so close. Just to get into the final was such a big step for me and I know that. It was my first final, and the nerves were a hundred times what I thought they’d be. “It was a full stadium. I found my parents in the crowd and just tried to stay calm. I was happy it was me in the pool and not them because I’m sure they were even more nervous than I was. I’m definitely really happy now with how it went.”

This is the last year Smith is eligible to swim for the Golden Gophers at the University of Minnesota, and she has her sights set on wins at the Big 10 (a showdown between 14 top NCAA Division 1 schools) in February, NCAA championships in March, and qualifying to swim for Canada at the FINA World Championships later in the year.

After the school swim season concludes, she’ll focus her attention on completing her double major in psychology and communications this summer. Smith plans on returning to Kelowna this spring to see family and friends, and also to reconvene with coach Emil and the Liquid Lightning Swim Club for a tune-up prior to the World Championship trials.

Smith and Dimitrov are already plotting their path to her next Olympic appearance.

“Emil and I already have our eyes set on 2020,” Smith said. “The day after Rio we started talking about it, so everything’s aiming towards that — preventing injury, working hard, and enjoying it. We’re both in love with the process and committed to the next four years. I know he’ll have my back, and as long as I keep working hard for him I know that we can get it done.”