Kenora's Gabe Mastromatteo earns spot on Canada's Olympic swimming roster

From being born and raised in northwestern Ontario to being bound for Tokyo, Gabe Mastromatteo is about to officially become an Olympian.

The 19-year-old swimmer, who was born in Thunder Bay and grew up in Kenora, was named to Canada's Olympic team after winning the 100-metre breaststroke at the national trials last week.

Janet Hyslop, Mastromatteo's mother and coach, said the last stretch of his final race was overwhelming to watch.

"I actually closed my eyes for the last five metres," she said. "It was so close."

Hyslop said, when she saw that Mastromatteo had touched the wall first, she had a rush of jubilation for what the achievement would mean for her son.

Mastromatteo made his senior national team debut two years ago, competing at the 2019 world championships in Gwangju, South Korea and had previously earned medals at the world junior level.

But since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games back a year and derailed training plans for athletes across the globe.

Hyslop said the leadup to these Olympics has been a very different scenario than anticipated.

"Training alone posed so many challenges for so many athletes. Athletes had to leave their programs at home and go swim at some of the centres," she said.

"Gabe, on the other hand, this wouldn't have been a year that he would have been at home and he was able to be home. We had him home most of the year, just due to the pandemic and that we had access to our facility in Kenora."

Hyslop described Mastromatteo as a "performer," who rises to the occasion when the most is at stake, but said the lack of competition over the last year was difficult.

"I think the hardest part was non-racing," she said. "Gabe is pretty used to training on his own. It's a reality in northwestern Ontario that we don't have great numbers, we don't have huge numbers of athletes. Those athletes that are at that high performance level often are on their own training.

"For him, the training part wasn't as different. What was hard was the competition, and knowing he was going into the biggest race of his life — to make the Olympic team — with only one race since last March, was probably the most intimidating piece."

With the start of the Olympics about a month away, Hyslop said she's ready to see what happens next.

"I do look forward to just being a mom and sitting on my couch and watching my kid stand up for the first time at the Olympics, and pretty excited that he'll get a tattoo," she said.