Coming into the 2010 Ontario Summer Games, local swimmers were looked upon to nab the bulk of the medals from a Sudbury perspective. Safe to say that the likes of Kelly Hotta, Jacob Toner, Julie Langlois and Justin Burton-McCarthy certainly did not disapoint.
The quartet, all of whom swim with the Sudbury Laurentian Swim Club, racked up an impressive hardware collection of 16 medals as the competition ended late Friday afternoon - 7 Gold, 4 Silver & 5 Bronze.
Fresh off a two-medal performance at Age Group Nationals just a few weeks back, Kelly Hotta narrowly missed a 6/6 sweep, finishing second in the Girls (14) 100m butterfly but less than three-quarters of a second.
She was untouchable in the freestyle, winning the 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m events and helping to lift the NEOR (North Eastern Ontario) Regional team to a fourth place finish within the six-team competition.
Coming off the thrill of victory at a national competition, Hotta knew that the lure of contributing towards a team goal at the Summer Games would help to provide a little more motivation. "NEOR is a twenty-four person team, and I knew that every race I would be swimming, they would be supporting me", acknowledged Hotta.
"When you hear them cheering when your name is announced, you just get so fired up about it." Accomplishing almost everything that she aimed to do in 20009-2010, the 14 year old Lockerby Composite student is really looking forward to a little down time bfeore school starts.
"We're going to camp, relax and then get ready to get back in the pool in September", said Hotta. While she has no formal swim training planned until the middle of next month, Hotta expects to run a little, staying in shape such that the transition back to competition is fairly reasonable come the fall.
While all victories are special, Hotta admitted mid-week that there was a highlight early on that kind of set the tone. "My 50 free, because the one I did at Age Groups was pretty bad, so I wanted to break 28 seconds and I did (27.89 seconds) - it was pretty exciting."
While the talented teenager received much of the spotlight over the past few days, she certainly wasn't alone in contributing to a very solid output for the North East Regional crew.
Jacob Toner, a medallist at Age Group Nationals in the summer of 2009, ended the Games with a medal haul that included two Silvers (100m fly and 200m fly) as well as three Bronze (200m breast, 400m I.M. and 1500m free), displaying impressive versatility.
Julie Langlois (Girls 15) hit the top of the podium on two occasions, touching the wall first in both the 50m and 100m freestyle races in her age classification.
Justin Burton-McCarthy chipped in with a Silver (200m fly) and two Bronze medals (100m fly & 200m free), while Kasey Thompson (just 13 years old), Tori Jewell and Emilie Whipple rounded out the SLSC contingent.
Other local highlights included the performance of mountain biker Dominic Girard and the entire Walden Mountain Bike Club team representing the North. Sandwiched between winning a Bronze medal in the individual Time Trials Thursday morning and adding another Bronze in the Cross Country competition Friday, Girard joined forces with Daniel Hill, Emily Forbes and Michael Girolametto-Prozen to capture Silver in the Team Relay.
The Walden MTB/Team Northern Ontario cyclists trailed only Team Hardwood in the overall standings, resting very little as they prepare to host the Sudbury Fitness Challenge mountain bike race on Sunday morning in Naughton.
Paddlers Emilie Bouchard and Mikaela Iturregui teamed up to win Bronze in the K2 1000m race at the Canoe/Kayak competition while Sean Grech started the Games with a bang from a local perspective, winning Gold in Karate early in Day One.
The 2012 Ontario Summer Games are slated for Toronto, while Collingwood, which hosted the Ontario Winter Games in both 2006 and 2008, has confirmed their bid to host again in 2012, with a decision on that front expected shortly.
