By David Rieder.
As a 15-year-old in 2015, Taylor Ruck starred at the FINA World Junior Championships in Singapore, winning individual gold medals in both the 100 and 200 free. One year later, she was a key cog of two Olympic medal-winning relays in Rio. At her first Short Course World Championships that December, Ruck won the bronze in the 200 free.
And then, in April of 2017, she missed out on making Canada’s World Championships team. At Canada’s World Championship Trials, she ended up eighth in the 100 and 200 free and sixth in the 400 free. Her best finish, a tie for fourth, came in an off-event, the 100 back.
What happened? Ruck was at a loss.
“I don’t really know,” Ruck said one week after Trials. “I think it was part mental, and I might have started tapering too soon, in a different way than I’m accustomed to.”
Photo Courtesy: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports
Ruck would still be a part of a Canadian international team, as she would go back to the World Junior Championships in August in Indianapolis. In the interim, she made a major life change, leaving her longtime home of Scottsdale, Ariz., in the U.S. to train with Ben Titley’s high performance group in Toronto, a group that included Olympic gold medalist Penny Oleksiak
Well, something clicked. That’s for sure. After just one night of World Juniors, Ruck already has one gold medal, two Junior World Records and plenty more still to come.
First up came that so-called “off-event,” the 100 back. Ruck, previously a backstroker during her younger years, entered seeded fourth at 1:00.46, and then she promptly blasted right through the 1:00 barrier in prelims, qualifying second for semi-finals in 59.64. In the semi-final, she finished in 59.28, lowering the World Junior Record of 59.34 set by Minna Atherton last summer.
Somewhere along the way, Ruck again became a backstroker. When did that happen? “That’s what I want to know,” Oleksiak chimed in.
“When I came to Ben’s group, the HBC-Ontario, it started coming back again,” Ruck said. “I don’t know, but I’m just happy it’s back.”
Photo Courtesy: Vaughn Ridley/Swimming Canada
Of course, she had no real need to answer for herself if she was going to swim the eighth-fastest time in the world this year.
Immediately after her 100 back semi-final, Ruck hopped in the diving well, off-limits to most swimmers at World Juniors, to cool down in preparation to anchor Canada’s 800 free relay team. The other three legs of that relay were Ruck’s training partners: Oleksiak, Kayla Sanchez and Rebecca Smith.
Each of the four women knew that if they swam even close to their capabilities, the gold medal was theirs to lose.
Sanchez touched second after the first leg, but Oleksiak quickly built a lead, and Smith extended it. Ruck was dove into the pool ahead by almost four seconds, and she still split 1:56.94, the second-fastest mark in the race behind Japan’s Rikako Ikee and Oleksiak. That was after less than a half-hour’s worth of rest.
Most importantly for Ruck, the swim was back at the level she had shown herself capable of in Rio, when she split 1:56.18 to lead Canada to bronze in the 800 free relay. She had been nowhere close to that mark since—until she got to Indy.
“It feels really good,” Ruck said. “I feel like this is where I should be, just to do these times. I’m really happy with where I am.”
Canada’s final time was 7:51.47, a World Junior Record by a five seconds, and the junior foursome swam also four seconds quicker than the Canadian team did on the way to an eighth-place squad swam at the World Championships last month.
Ah yes, Worlds—a solid meet for Canada, complete with Kylie Masse’s world record-setting performance in the 100 back, Sydney Pickrem’s emotional bronze in the 400 IM and two bronze medals on mixed relays, but it was not quite at the level of those magical Rio Olympics, when Canada’s women won six medals to snap a 20-year Olympic podium drought.
One night and one impressive double is admittedly a small sample size, but that Canadian team looks so much stronger if Ruck really is back to that elite level. She has five more days to prove herself in Indy, with a 100 back showdown against American Regan Smith pending for Thursday plus the 200 free and other relay swims still to come.
Even when she did not qualify for Worlds, it was hard to forget about Taylor Ruck, who along with Oleksiak was the first-ever athlete born in the 21st century to win a medal at the Olympic Games. Even when she was not at her best, the potential of what she could do and the reality of what she had done meant better days could be ahead.
And now, just four months after she was left behind at Trials, Ruck is back.
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Yeah for T-Ruck we are so happy for you, keep up the hard work! Arizona Huffers <3
Ikee had fastest split.
Congratulations