Ever so gracefully, Eva Jessup and Heidi Fink flow through the water, movements in unison with all the elegance of those born to this habitat.
If the 2024-2025 season is to be their “swan song" as a duo, the Sudbury Artistic Swim Club swimmers might as well look the part.
“In the back of my mind, it’s always there that this could be my last time swimming,” said Fink, a 17 year-old grade 12 student at Ecole secondaire Macdonald-Cartier. The tandem which has only existed for the past two years claimed silver medals at the recent Leslie Taylor Ontario Cup, their sights now set on a pair of year-end events in April and May.
“If this is my last year, I really want to give it my all, put everything out there.”
Separated by two years in age, the girls are the last remaining remnants of what was once a highly vibrant and quite talented grouping of young swimmers with the club, a collection of swimmers that took a serious hit thanks to the global pandemic.
“We were a team of eight and none of the other girls I swam with continued on,” said Jessup, an underager who connected with Fink after the pair grew close as members of a larger squad.
“They kind of all drifted away so I moved over to Heidi’s team.”
Initially, swimming up clearly presented some challenges, though developmentally, it definitely helped Jessup in the end. “When I got to that team, I was worried that they would notice that I was not as talented as the older girls, that I was not as experienced. Courtney and Emily (coaches Courtney Stasiuk and Emily Binks) put a lot of work into me that year.”
As numbers dwindled , the pair looked to an all-too-natural bond as the basis of what has become one of the most competitive duos the club has produced in quite some time. “Heidi and I live in the same neighbourhood,” explained Jessup. “Originally, we started car-pooling together - and then we got put on the same team.”
“When we tell people that this is only our second year together, they are kind of shocked because we have such a good connection,” continued the 15 year old grade 10 student at College Notre-Dame. “A lot of the things that we do are at the exact same time. There are a lot of times where we say the same thing at exactly the same time.”
“We have a really good relationship outside of synchro,” added Fink, the daughter of a former synchronized swimmer and currently embracing her 12th year in the sport. “We’re not just friends at the pool. We have that special chemistry.”
Among the many similarities that the pairing exhibit is a shared appreciation for the arrival of a new competitive U10 team this year, reminiscent of the youthful groupings that abounded when Fink and Jessup were far younger.
“Eva and I always look forward to having practices with them; we help out with the little girls quite often,” said Fink. “They look up to us so we want to push harder and look good for them, be good role models for them.”
“When Heidi and I started at that age, there were multiple teams above us,” added Jessup. “I remember looking up to coach Emily because she was still swimming when I was young. I see that now in these girls.”
Born in Matheson but moving to Sudbury at the age of six, Jessup almost immediately took to what was then synchronized swimming, lured to the pool initially by a Try Synchro flyer and the urging of a co-worker of her father who had a daughter involved.
“I like music and I love to swim and I guess it just kind of clicked, if that makes sense,” stated Jessup. “You start to see the progress and you start to see results. For me, I didn’t start achieving higher marks at competitions until I was 13 or 14.”
Under ideal circumstances, duets are not the combo of choice for the Sudbury Artistic Swim Club. “Throughout the years, I’ve done a bunch of different routines with a bunch of different numbers of swimmers,” explained Fink. “It started with just three of us and went up as high as ten sometimes.”
“It usually averaged around six to eight, but the last two years, it’s only been me and Eva.”
And so they flow, this one last time, searching success with no regrets.
