Jessie MacLean: From Southern Africa to St. Catharines
This weekend, among the U SPORTS swimming powerhouses — UBC, University of Toronto, Université de Montréal, and Dalhousie — one freestyle swimmer will be joining them on the starting blocks. A sprinter who spent most of her early competitive years in southern Africa.
Meet Brock University physical education student Jessie MacLean.
At the age of 3, MacLean moved with her parents and three brothers from Toronto to Malawi. Her parents worked in the country as missionaries, but found a way for their children to stay active. “I started swimming because there were outdoor pools at all the schools we went too, and my parents wanted to make sure my brothers and I got involved in organized sport,” she says.
Her first swim coach was her father, Scott. “My dad, who never swam competitively, started researching and reading lots. He started to coach me and my brothers, along with some of our best childhood friends to this day,” she explains.
As MacLean began to swim competitively with the Barracudas Swimming Club, she had the opportunity to travel around Africa, competing for Malawi in Zone 4 of the Conféderation Africaine de Natation Amateur (CANA), a region which consists of 18 countries in southern Africa. It wasn’t the results, but rather the experiences that she loved most about her formative years as a competitive swimmer. “This was when I began to fall in love with the sport — I loved the travel, the friends I made across the continent and getting on the blocks to race,” reminisced MacLean.
After 12 years of living in Malawi, MacLean and her family moved back to Toronto. Before moving back to Canada in 2009, she held seven national U12 short-course records. MacLean would represent Malawi again at the 2013 CANA Zone 3 & 4 Swimming Championships in Lusaka, Zambia, where she reached the podium in five events — 50m freestyle, 50m butterfly, 100m freestyle, 100m backstroke, and 200m freestyle. “Racing has always been something I enjoyed — unless its anything over 100 meters,” she laughs.
In her first year at Brock University, MacLean broke the school record in the 50m freestyle event, a record that had stood since 1991, at the OUA deBray Divisional Swimming Championships. During the U SPORTS Swimming Championships that year at Université Laval, she reached the A Final in the 50m freestyle (long course) and finished with a time of 26.83.
Now in her second year with the Badgers, MacLean enters the U SPORTS Swimming Championships with the 9th fastest qualifying time in the 50m freestyle, and will once again be competing against some of the fastest swimmers in the country in the 50m and 100m freestyle events. “Going into the U SPORTS championships, I’m nervous because, being a sprinter, there is no room for error. But what gives me confidence is knowing that I have put in all the training,” she says.
Win or lose, MacLean knows that there’s more to life than winning swimming medals. “One thing I always remind myself is to be grateful for this opportunity that so many do not have and make the most of the event.”
“Swimming has taught me what it is to be disciplined, how to work hard, allowed me to travel all over, and I have made some of the best friends and most amazing memories through the sport.”
The 2017 U SPORTS Swimming Championships take place at the Université de Sherbrooke from February 24 to 26. Watch live on usports.live.
