Nina Kucheran’s swimming chase isn’t over yet.

Local breaststroke athletes rank among the best in the country. He had finished it NCAA career, finishing off with Florida alligator after enjoying three years with Florida State Seminole.

There are still paths that Kucheran can pursue, paths that he still has to pursue.

“They have a really nasty pro team here (the University of Florida) with Olympic athletes from the US and other countries,” said the 22-year-old. University of Notre-Dame passed. “Pro swimmers train with college swimmers. Having a group of people here shooting for the same thing as me is a great environment.

“I think I owe it to myself.”

There is little doubt that much of his current mindset was born out of extremely successful swimming streaks. Kucheran enjoyed his best showing in the NCAA championship and followed that up with a personal best time in the Canadian Test – all under less than ideal circumstances.

“By the time you get tryouts it’s hard when you’re a collegiate swimmer,” said Kucheran. “You taper for the conference, you taper for the NCAA. This is the third drop – in the most challenging part of the year.”

If there was any doubt in the first half of the 2022-2023 varsity season, the spring session renewed hope.

“I have to trust the process, which is of course much more difficult than it sounds,” he said.

Point of clarification: it’s a lot harder than it sounds when your swim times don’t show up as well as you hoped.

“For the second half (January to May – 2023), they really came together, with everything coming together for a championship season,” said Kucheran. “They emphasized here to be quick when it matters.

“I have to give this new program a legitimate chance.”

Where he is now being sold in progress, the path he has walked is not an easy one.

“The program here is very physically demanding, probably the most physically demanding program I’ve ever been on,” says Kucheran. “It’s very physically and mentally demanding.”

He already enjoys a well-deserved reputation as an absolute workhorse when it comes to his swim training regimen, pushed to the limits that very few people in the sport can handle that level of discomfort in practice to get those race day results. elite athlete fire fuel.

“But it’s just different in the sense that it’s a lot more volume than I’ve ever done,” he said. “And even though I’m tired of the amount of work I have to do, I still expect myself to leave at the same time. It’s a mental adjustment. I have to trust that I’m doing the right job in training and that the coach has a plan and it’s going to work.

Where training in Florida in recent years had been a simple by-product of retaining an NCAA scholarship, Kucheran no longer reveled in that option, seeking part-time work as a teaching assistant and trying to achieve the FINA “A” time needed to ensure Canadian Carding Sport – and funding.

“I was one second behind in the 200 meters, about 0.7 seconds in the 100m,” said Kucheran.

A number of top class encounters this summer will prepare the northern girl to feature at the 2023 Canadian Speedo Swimming Championships in August.

At least that’s the plan for now.

“You wrote your plans in pencil,” laughed Kucheran. “That’s kind of my motto.”

Randy Pascal is a sportswriter based in Greater Sudbury. Pursuit is made possible by our Community Leader Program.