Macaulay and w. swimming look to extend winning streak

Though hailing from a country known more for success on ice, Canadian sophomore Chrissy Macaulay has quickly established herself as one of the top swimmers in the Ivy League. Macaulay is helping women's swimming continue its tradition of success, which includes the team's remarkable 36-straight dual meet winning streak.

Since her high school did not offer competitive swimming, Macaulay, who grew up near Toronto, swam for five years for the Tobicoke Swim Club. Her interest in Princeton was partly a result of the experience of her older sister Jenny Macaulay '02, who swam for the Tigers for three years.

The younger Macaulay chose Princeton over Notre Dame and Northwestern. She fell in love with the school on her recruiting trip and explained that the incredible team dynamic at Princeton sealed her decision.

Contrasting club and collegiate swimming, Macaulay explained that club is more individual-oriented, while collegiate competition, especially at Princeton, is much more focused on the team element.

"At Princeton, it's less about me and how I perform and more about the team," Macaulay says.

Macaulay competed in short-distance freestyle and breaststroke while in high school and still competes in those events in addition to relays here at Princeton. In a typical seventeen-event dual meet, she normally competes in four events, including the 50 and 100 freestyle, the 200 medley relay, and the 400 freestyle relay, as she did against Brown in the team's most recent dual meet.

Earlier in the season against Brown and Cornell, Macaulay anchored the first-place 200 medley relay, won the 50 freestyle, placed third in the 100 freestyle two events later, and helped the 400 freestyle relay team to second.

Macaulay hopes to compete in three individual events, plus up to four relays, at the conference championships at the end of February.

A goal-oriented athlete, Macaulay has set specific performance expectations for herself this season and for the years to come.

This year, she wants to compete in four relays at the conference championships and win the 50 free in that meet. She hopes to qualify for the 50 free at the NCAA championships by meeting the time standard.

Despite the season goals, Macaulay maintains perspective, explaining that she follows coach Susan Teeter's philosophy on the importance of "single daily actions" in building up to bigger goals.

"You can't always evaluate success [along the way] as determined by goals. You have to determine what the little things are you can work on. You can only control the process, what you're doing every day," Macaulay says.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

In the longterm future, she hopes to compete in the Olympics for Canada. Macaulay's quest for Athens in 2004, however, may be severely inhibited by the Ivy League's seven-week rule on athletics.

Macaulay explained that without year-round training, and, more specifically, training with Princeton coaches and other swimmers from the end of the collegiate swimming season in March to the Canadian Olympic trials in July — during which time the moratorium restricts Macaulay's access to coaches and facilities — she would have little chance of being in good enough shape to qualify for the team.

In the more immediate future, however, Macaulay is concentrating on the tasks at hand for the Princeton squad: repeating as Ivy League champions, winning the H-Y-P meet, and of course, continuing the dual meet win streak. Macaulay contended that the win streak, rather than creating an aura of complacency, actually motivates the swimmers to work even harder because they know that every competitor wants to end their run.

Macaulay, who trains twice a day — from 6:30 to 8:30 in the morning and again in the afternoon — suggested that the team's success only fuels its competitive burn.

"We know that everybody wants to snap our winning streak. Inevitably, some time down the road, we're going to lose. Every member of the team is fired up about delaying that as long as possible," she says.

With Macaulay in the pool, opponents may have to wait a long while.