Fate decided long ago that Liz Warden would be a swimmer “My mom was a swim coach, so every day after school, I would have to go with her to the pool,” she says. “I swam with her for a while, then I started competitive swimming at the Scarborough swim club when I was seven.” Now, at 24, Liz Warden has just completed her fourth year on the Varsity Blues swim team, which has been her best yet.
U of T’s swim teams have a legacy of success, with the women’s team winning the national title 14 times in the last 20 years and the men winning their conference for the last 32 years. This year was no different, as both the Varsity Blues men’s and women’s squads went on to take the OUAs and finished fourth overall in the Canadian Interuniversity (CI) tournaments.
This past year was special for Warden. She set team records in the 100- and 200-metre backstrokes, as well as in the 200- and 400-metre individual medleys (a combination of the butterfly stroke, the backstroke, the breaststroke, and the freestyle). Liz is undefeated in OUA competition with 23 straight wins. This year she won gold in the 200- and 400-metre breaststroke, the 200 and 400-metre medleys, as well as in the 4×50 and 4×100 medley relays. At the CIs, Warden added four gold, one silver and three bronze medals to her credit.
Liz’s performance this year earned her the Blues female Athlete of the Year prize. But the accolades did not stop there. She was also named OUA female Athlete of the Year, which qualified her for the Howard Mackie Award, an award given out by the law firm of Borden, Ladner and Gervais every May, to honor the top male and female athletes in Canadian university sport. From four candidates representing the Atlantic, Ontario, Quebec and Western regions, Warden was selected as the recipient, becoming the third University of Toronto athlete to be so honoured.
In addition to her swimming at the university level, Warden has made her presence known on the national and international stages. At the 1998 Commonwealth Games, she won the silver medal in the 200-metre medley. Earlier this year at the national championships in Winnipeg, Warden took home three gold medals, beating Olympian Marianne Limpert, to qualify for the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England.
Although swimming plays a large part in Warden’s daily life, she still finds time to pursue an English degree, as she hopes to one day become an elementary school teacher. Because she competes at the university level, as well as the national and international levels, Warden has a strict training schedule that demands a lot of time. But she recognizes and appreciates the balance. ” I find it’s a good balance, having something other than my sport, and having something other than school,” Warden says. “If I get stressed out with school and I can’t handle it anymore, I can come in and work out to relieve the stress. On the other hand, school helps me focus on something else, because if I was focused only on swimming all the time, I think I’d probably go crazy.”
This past year has instilled Liz with a new fervour and vigour for competitive swimming. Her performance at the national championships has qualified her for the Commonwealth Games, but Warden has her eyes set on a bigger prize.
“Before this year, I wasn’t too sure on how long I was gonna keep swimming. Last year I wasn’t swimming well, and 2000 was a disappointing year because I missed the Olympic team going to Sydney by one second in my best event,” Warden says. “I was kind of upset about that and was having doubts about swimming, but now I’m more excited about swimming and am definitely looking forward to the 2004 Olympics in Athens.”
