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Gabe Mastromatteo reflects after summer swimming on the world stage

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At just 17, Gabe Mastromatteo has seen more of the globe than most people will in their life. 

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The Kenora Swimming Shark has stamps from Japan, Korea and Hungary in his passport after a summer wearing the maple leaf on his swim cap. He even spent some time in Croatia on vacation for some much-needed rest after a busy season.  

Mastromatteo was in Gwangju, South Korea for the FINA World Championships in July where he got to rub shoulders with some of the best swimmers on the planet. He relayed a story of watching British swimmer Adam Peaty preparing for the 100m breaststroke – a race Mastromatteo won gold in at the 2018 Junior Pan Pacific Championships in Fiji.  

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Peatty was “chill, super focused” and “never really showed emotion,” Mastromatteo said in a recent interview.   

“It was just a normal day for him, and he came in and set a world record that night,” he said.   

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Peatty finished the race in just 56.88 seconds, setting a world record. The 24-year-old has been the gold standard when it comes to the 100m breaststroke, breaking his own record four times.  

Mastromatteo, who lists Spider-Man as his favourite superhero on his Swimming Canada bio, made the senior Canadian squad after his performances at the 2019 Canadian Swimming Trials in April, winning silver in the 50 and 100m breaststroke. He said he and all the rookies were all “just part of the team.”  

“I was happy with that, the team was amazing,” he said.   

From the senior worlds, Mastromatteo had a small reprieve, swimming in the Canadian Swimming Championships in Winnipeg before packing his bags for the FINA World Junior Championships in Hungary in August.  

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There Mastromatteo won three medals, one silver and two bronze. He was half a second off from being the fastest in the world in the 50m breaststroke with a time of 27.73 seconds. Mastromatteo won bronze alongside his Canadian teammates in the 4x100m mixed medley relay and the 4x100m medley relay. He also nabbed a fourth-place finish in the 100m breaststroke.  

Mastromatteo outperformed his results from the 2017 world juniors, where he finished eighth in the 50m breaststroke and ninth in the 100m breaststroke.  

All throughout the world juniors, local media provided updates on Mastromatteo’s results and each time they were met with dozens of shares and posts on social media from Kenoraites sharing in his successes.  

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Mastromatteo laughed when the word celebrity was brought up, saying “it’s a little bit of a stretch.”  

Mastromatteo noted he does appreciate all the support Kenora has given him in his budding career.  

“It’s awesome, I really appreciate it, I’ll go on Twitter, Instagram and I’ll see stuff and it’s awesome,” he said. “I love it.”  

For the “last two or three years,” according to Mastromatteo, his mom, Janet Hyslop has been coaching the swimming sensation. She was one of the coaches with Team Canada in Hungary, helping Canadian teammates hit personal bests.  

“She knows me better than any coach ever really would because she gave birth to me,” Mastromatteo deadpanned. “She’s a great coach, I’m lucky to have her.”  

Mastromatteo just started Grade 12 at St. Thomas Aquinas High School and somehow manages to find the time to balance a rigorous training schedule with the demands of academics. Mastromatteo will train two hours a day in the pool, along with weight training.  

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“I usually get Sundays off,” he said with a smirk.  

Mastromatteo said his teachers have been “amazing through this whole thing” and have helped him a lot in making sure he gets his schoolwork done.  

Of course, with his results on the world stage and his current career trajectory, Olympics are not out of the question for the young swimmer. Mastromatteo is staying on course however and refuses to get caught up in the Olympic craze.  

“I don’t want to have it as my only focus,” he said. “I just want to focus on training and doing the right things and keep building on what I’ve been doing, put the work in behind the scenes. I know I can race; I know I can do well at big meets I just need to pick up the rest of that to where I really need it to be.”  

The 2020 Summer Olympics are in Tokyo next summer and the ticket to get there is through the Canadian Swimming Trials in April.  

“That’s the pinnacle,” Mastromatteo said. “There’s no ‘Oh you swam well all year, so we’ll take you’ you have to swim fast this single race and if you don’t, well it sucks for you.”  

The trials are the big meet in the coming months and Mastromatteo is hopeful but “it’s the Olympics, it’s not an easy thing to make,” he said.  

For now, it’s getting back into the routine of high school and training for the trials in Toronto.  

rstelter@postmedia.com 

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