Peddie Joins Hayden in Pursuit of Olympic Dream
It was summer of 2009 when this relatively unknown 17-year-old sprinter from St-Albert, Alta., Luke Peddie, made a strong impression on the Canadian swim scene, qualifying for his first senior national team, while racing his first Canadian championships.
Today, the Vancouver National Swim Centre announces that Peddie will join the fastest 100-metre freestyle swimmer in the world this year, Brent Hayden (Mission, B.C.), for the 2011 season, as he pursues his Olympic dream.
The youngest male swimmer to compete for Canada last August at the Pan Pacific Championships in Irvine, Luke Peddie, says that he is excited to be moving to Vancouver to join the National Swim Centre and train under coach Tom Johnson.
For Commonwealth Games double gold medallist Brent Hayden, this means having a young sidekick pushing him while trying to follow in his footsteps.
“I am looking forward to having Luke train with us,” says Hayden. “He’s a talented individual with a lot of potential and he’s going to be a great addition to our team. I know in training we will be able to push each other to train harder and swim faster.”
Peddie will be completing his high school year in Edmonton and continuing to swim with the Edmonton Olympian Swim Club under Head Coach Carl Simonson. He will make the move to join fellow Pan Pacific Team Members and Olympians Brent Hayden, Brian Johns and Scott Dickens in Vancouver at the end of this season.
Luke started his swimming with the Edmonton Olympian Swim Club 11 years ago, training with coaches Dave MacDonald, Chris Nelson and Carl Simonson over his swimming career. He turned some heads this past season with some top performances at both Western Championships and Age Group Nationals, but it was his rapid emergence onto the senior national scene this last summer that got him noticed.
