As she prepares to head to France to compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics, Canadian swimmer Emma O’Croinin makes a point of being grateful for the team of “incredible girls” she’ll be racing with as well as being thankful just to take part in her first Olympics.
“It’s such an honour to be on the team with those girls,” the 21-year-old Edmonton-raised athlete told Global News at Noon Edmonton on Wednesday. “To be a part of it is really fun.”
What O’Croinin is a part of is Team Canada in the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay.
“Some people think it’s more pressure because you’re not just performing for yourself, you really want to do your best for the team,” she explained. “But I really enjoy it.”
The team is not all from the same place, although O’Croinin noted some of its members have swam on different teams with one another before.
“We have a couple of weeks together before the Olympics where we’re going to be training together,” she said, noting that training continues at a high pace right now. “Soon we’ll start tapering and then we’ll get to be rested and ready to go.”
O’Croinin spoke of another team of sorts on Wednesday, talking about how grateful she is to her family members for their support and encouragement. She said her whole family will be in France to watch her race.
“They’re so supportive. I couldn’t do what I do without their support,” she said, adding that some family members from Ireland will also be travelling to France to see her compete.
“No matter the result, they’re always there for me and happy I’m just trying my best and having fun with it.”
O’Croinin, who started swimming competitively at the age of eight, said her mother was also a swimmer when she was younger. She added that her brothers competed in sports when she was younger.
“I really just wanted to be like them,” she said, adding that she always loved swimming and simply decided to “make that my thing.”
In 2019, O’Croinin was named Swimming Canada’s Female Junior Swimmer of the Year.
The swimmer, who currently competes collegiately for the UBC Thunderbirds, has already faced formidable competition on the international swimming stage. She competed at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games where she swam in the prelims of the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay that won bronze. Individually, she reached the final of the 200m freestyle event there.
O’Croinin has also raced at three editions of the World Aquatics Championships, at the 2019 World Junior Swimming Championships and the 2018 Junior Pan Pacific Championships.
When asked what it feels like knowing she will soon compete at her first Olympics, she answered with “incredible.”
“You dream of this when you’re a kid and for it to be actually happening is pretty wild,” O’Croinin said.