Guelph swimmer to rep Canada at World Cup competition

This fall has been a season of new swimming experiences for Guelph’s Ali Kudo.

The 18-year-old John F. Ross CVI graduate has started her first NCAA swimming campaign with the Eastern Michigan University Eagles in Ypsilanti, Mich., and this week is competing in her first large international event as she competes for Canada at the World Cup meet at the Pan Am Pool in Scarborough.

“It's kind of exciting and kind of nerve wracking, but I'm super pumped,” she said of the World Cup meet.

Getting to compete in the meet is a reward for a strong year of competition with the Guelph Marlin Aquatic Club. Marlins clubmate Jenna Walters is also at the meet.

“Last year I had a really good year for my swimming and so when they put out the participants for the World Cup meet, they were allowing a certain amount of the fastest swimmers in Canada to also participate in the meet just because it's already hosted in Canada anyway and luckily I made the list,” Kudo said.

Kudo’s experience competing in bigger meets is limited, mainly due to the global pandemic.

“I've only been to Nationals once because of COVID so everything's kind of been messed up for me,” she said. “We had nationals this past summer in Montreal. That was an OK meet for me, but it was kind of like the end of the season so I didn't do as well as I wanted to.”

Going to the U.S. to compete brought another change for Kudo. In Canada the meets are in metres. In the U.S., they’re in yards so there’s a bit of difference between competing in 200-metre events and 200-yard events.

“It's kind of a big change,” she said. “I've never swum yards before so that's very different for me, especially just coming off long-course season and everything. I've had to adjust my stroke count a little bit and figure out my paces because I don't really know the times I should be going and stuff like that. I feel like I've kind of gotten into a groove so I think I'm going to be well prepared for the meets coming up.”

Kudo had to be a little cautious in her first practice sessions at Eastern Michigan.

“When we first started out, I was not used to it at all and I'd have to take really small strokes into my wall just because I have a certain stroke count that I always take,” she said. “Luckily, I've adjusted. It just took a little while.

“For me, it's one or two strokes. When you're racing, it's a lot different than when you're practising because when I'm practising, I can go slow into my walls, but when I'm racing I often feel like I'm going to run into my walls.”

Kudo has been swimming competitively for about half her life.

She now specializes in the freestyle, but that wasn’t always the case.

“To be honest, I used to be a backstroker and then I was a butterflier, but freestyle is kind of more my thing because I can do longer distances,” Kudo said. “With the other strokes, they only go up to 200 (metres, in Canada). I'd say my best events are 200m, 400m plus. It's just always worked that way for me.”

With the freestyle, backstroke and butterfly strokes on her resume, sounds like she could be a candidate for the four-stroke individual medley.

“Gosh no,” she said in a hurry. “I don' think so. My breaststroke is not cut out for the medley.”

Being a student/athlete means combining academics with athletics and that also means having to be good at time management.

“I'm pretty good at time management because I've been swimming since I was little so I've always had to do my homework then get to practice and then do more homework afterwards because I don't have time to procrastinate,” she said. “I think that's working in my favour at university so far.”

Kudo has to be good at time management as she has a pretty heavy course load.

“I'm majoring in neuroscience with a pre-med intent,” she said. “It's going pretty well so far. I really like all my classes. I was kind of nervous at first choosing neuroscience as my major, but it's working out pretty well for me so far.”

Another change for Kudo, although not a big one, is the team aspect of university swimming.

“I feel like in college it becomes a lot more team oriented than it was when I was doing club swimming,” she said. “Club swimming was about the team, but it was more about your own times whereas I feel here it's more about winning for the team. You don't necessarily care about the time, but you always want to be first to the wall. I like that. It kind of makes me nervous before my races wanting to do good and helping everyone, but it's really nice knowing there's a lot of people behind me.”

Being nervous before races is certainly nothing new for Kudo.

“I always have had pretty bad nerves before my races, but this past year I've really been focusing having fun with my swimming and feeling confident with my practising and stuff like that knowing it'll get me really good results. I've been working on it.”

At the World Cup meet, Kudo’s goals are simple – just do the best she can do.

“I've never been to such a, I don't know if you'd call it a major meet, but a bigger event like this,” she said. “I'm kind of just looking to focus on my swimming. I don't know where I'm going to be placing and that doesn't really matter to me. I want to get back into short course and metres and see how that goes. Within a couple of seconds of my best times is what I'm looking for and then just seeing what big meets are all about and everything.”

A really good thing for Kudo, the World Cup meet is in a pool she knows well.

“That's where the majority of my meets were last year. It's my favourite pool in Canada so I'm super excited to be back there.”