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Lloydminster Aquanaut Newspaper Articles.

Triple gold for local swimmer

Sunday, July 22, 2001
Lloydminster Booster

As a star member of the Lloydminster Aquanauts swim club, 10-year-old Jessica Kelly is no stranger to gold medals.

Winning them at a winter club meet and in a long course pool however, is something new to her.

After posting some of the provinces best 10-year-old times with the Aquanauts earlier this summer, Kelly was asked to be part of the Alberta Summer Swim Association All-Stars, a team of summer club standouts with "A" times that competes against the winter clubs at long course A provincials.

She attended the provincial meet at the Kinsmen Sports Centre in Edmonton last weekend simply looking for some experience. She came home with a handful of hardware.

Competing in four different 50 metre strokes, Kelly swam to three gold medals and a fifth place finish. She won freestyle gold with a time of 32.14 seconds, beating Fort McMurray's Danielle Newton. In the backstroke, Kelly's gold medal time of 37.27 seconds was more than a full second faster than Red Deer's Julie Kells, the second place finisher. The butterfly was almost a carbon copy of the backstroke race.

Kelly posted a time of 35.82 seconds - more than a full second better than Kells again to take the gold medal.