By Scott Strasser
Rocky View Publishing
Cochrane’s Adora Kruger was the first athlete from the region to win a gold medal at this year's Canada Winter Games, as a member of Alberta’s artistic swimming team.
Kruger, a first-year student at Mount Royal University, is the only member of Team Alberta who doesn’t hail from Calgary. Still, the 18-year-old is very familiar with her teammates, as they all compete alongside her with the Calgary Aquabelles.
The gold-medal-winning team already had plenty of chemistry before the Canada Winter Games, according to Kruger.
“It’s really nice because we can meet up on the odd Tuesday morning to do an extra couple hours of training,” she said. “On the weekends, we do 14-hour training camps – seven hours a day for two days.”
Alberta showed that chemistry was on point Feb. 20, when the team topped the standings during the preliminary round.
“I thought it went absolutely amazing,” Kruger said. “We were all connected and swimming as a unit – just energizing each other.”
Team Alberta competed Feb. 21 in the finals and earned first place with a cumulative score of 159.0363 points.
Along with the team event, Kruger competed in the duet competition Feb. 21 alongside Natalie Greenfield. The pair swam to an 11th-place finish.
“We did pretty good,” Kruger said. “My duet partner and I have only been swimming together for around three weeks. We swam really connected and were super synchronized.”
Kruger, who has been competing in artistic swimming for about 10 years, said her mother got her into the sport when she was just seven years old.
“She actually went to the Canada Winter Games in 1979,” Kruger said. “She wanted me to have the same experiences as her growing up, which I’m super happy about, because I love the sport.”
