Zoe Barnes is making waves in the world of competitive sports.
The Newmarket native, who currently lives in Beeton and trains at the BWG Leisure Centre, overcame the competition to take home three medals from the Special Olympics Provincial Spring Games, which were held in Waterloo from May 23 to 26.
More than 750 athletes competed in events including basketball, power lifting, rhythmic gymnastics, 10-pin bowling, and Barnes’ specialty, swimming.
She swam her way to silver in 400-metre freestyle with a time of 7:28.28 as well as two gold medals for 800-metre and 1,500-metre freestyles with times of 16:29.63 and 29:05.07, respectively.
“It’s a proud moment and you have to embrace it,” Barnes said of her accomplishment, adding that she was “quite excited,” to discover she medalled in all three events.
For the non-swimmers out there, Barnes explained the 800 metres is 32 lengths of a standard 25-metre-long pool and the 1,500 is almost double that at 60 lengths.
“You have to learn to pace yourself,” she said. “At the finish I looked up at my time and I was quite shocked, because I was more than two minutes faster than my times last year in the 1,500.”
While impressed, her swimming coach, Wendy Cimanro, wasn’t surprised by how well Barnes performed.
“Zoe goes above and beyond with training, and sets her goals and does not let any adversity get in the way,” she said.
That training routine includes 1.5-hour sessions five days a week at the leisure centre in Bradford with two in the water and three upstairs in the exercise room, plus another one-hour session with coaches Cimanro and Duane Carson of the Crest Club of Newmarket at St. Andrews College in Aurora one day a week from October through May.
Decorated journey
All that hard work comes as part of a 24-year journey for Barnes who said she joined Crest Club when she was eight years old, but has been swimming for as long as she can remember, including some fond memories of summer camp.
“I was born to be in water, so I’ve loved the water from a very young age,” she said.
Barnes has a collection of medals to show for it too, and while she was too humble to reveal the full count, she said she has medals from the 2008 spring games in Pickering and the 2010 national summer games in London.
She also recalled travelling to Antigonish, N.S. to compete in the 2018 national summer games, after qualifying at the 2016 provincial games in Guelph.
In light of all of her accomplishments, Barnes is quick to share credit with her coaches, trainers and the staff at the BWG Leisure Centre.
“I just want to put out there: Thank you to the Crest Club for helping me achieve my goals, and without this facility here today, without the lifeguards, the staff upstairs and the trainers, I wouldn’t be able to achieve the goals I have set for myself,” she said.
Those goals extend even beyond her abilities as a swimmer, as she also won a bronze medal for alpine skiing during the 2013 winter world games in South Korea, where Barnes said she managed a qualifying time good enough that she was bumped up from the intermediate class to the advanced class.
“Being there in the moment was spectacular,” she said. “I have life-long friends from all over the world now.”
Overcoming the odds
Cimanro is always glad when Barnes makes it through skiing season in one piece to continue swim training, and while Barnes enjoys training for and competing in both sports she said one of her favourite aspects of swimming is how it helps her cope with her disability.
“To be honest with you, with my intellectual disability, it keeps me out of the hospital and it keeps my right-sided weakness stronger,” she said.
Born with a brain injury, Barnes explained she lives with epilepsy that can cause debilitating seizures with “stroke-like symptoms” that can lead to months of rebuilding the strength on the right side of her body.
Zoe’s father, Colin Barnes, said that he and his wife are “very proud” of Zoe for such “a great accomplishment” in bringing home three medals.
“As a child we were told that she would never walk and talk,” he said, but added they never gave up. “We have spent many, many times building goals for her when she has a setback medically, building up her health and her strength and her stamina.”
Colin explained the Special Olympics has been important for the family, not just because it supports Zoe’s competitive goals, but also provides the “tremendous” benefit of a social network, and even the opportunity to travel — both nationally and internationally.
When it comes to the source of Zoe’s swimming abilities, both her natural talent and the skills she’s worked to build, Colin admitted it’s not something that runs in the family.
“We are persistent as a family,” he said. “We strive to do the best in everything we can, whether it be volunteering or whether it be in the sport itself, but Zoe’s coaches have to be credited both in swimming and dry-land training as well as skiing.”
As a father, he’s thankful for all the fundraising efforts and charitable organizations who support Special Olympics.
“It’s tremendous when you see what the athletes get out of it,” he said.
Looking to the future
For now, Zoe is taking a well-deserved break, giving her time to enjoy some of her hobbies.
When not in the pool or on the hill, Zoe also enjoys photography, spending time with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, helping with horse and dog shows, and socializing with friends.
The family is also making time for a trip to the U.K., and in future, Zoe is hoping she might have the chance travel more in Europe and maybe one day visit Australia and New Zealand.
In the meantime, after returning to Canada she’ll be gearing up for more training in hopes of making the national team set to compete in Medicine Hat, Alta., in 2026.
If all goes well there, Zoe could have the opportunity to tick one more international location off her list of places to visit as the world games are scheduled to take place in Chile in 2027, which would be the first time in the organization’s 55-year history that a world games will take place in the southern hemisphere.
When asked what advice she has for other potential Special Olympians, Zoe referred to the organization’s athlete oath: Let me win, and if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.
Special Olympics provides year-round training and competitions for Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.
For more information, visit the Special Olympics (specialolympics.org) or Special Olympics Canada (specialolympics.ca) websites.
