One Luskville native hopped in the pool with the province’s best young swimmers this month in preparation for a national competition in Calgary.

Tianna Beaufort-Bradley, an 11-year-old synchronized swimmer, qualified for Quebec’s provincial team this summer and has spent the past two weeks training in Quebec City and Montreal with her new teammates.

The pre-teen began competitive synchronized swimming four years ago with a club in Gatineau, and found out earlier this summer she had qualified for the Quebec program – the result of an extensive selection process that winnowed 50 candidates down to a final 10.

“It was very exciting,” she said of the moment she read the email with the good news. “And then after, when I figured out my actual placement, I was very excited too.”

Once the thrill wore off, it was time to get to work. Beaufort-Bradley has been training more than 40 hours a week, perfecting her individual moves as well as her team’s routine, a three-minute choreographed dance number done entirely in the pool.

She even got the chance to train with provincial athletes from older age groups, including Mya Fortin, a member of the Canadian senior national team who is eyeing the Olympics.

“It’s very cool because I can push myself to be as good as them for a while,” said Beaufort-Bradley, who sees Fortin as a role model.

Her mother Camille Beaufort, who has been chauffeuring her daughter across the province to these training sessions, said athletics come naturally to the young swimmer.

“She started doing gymnastics when she was two, and she was literally climbing my counters [ . . . ] She’s really good at diving, too,” she said.

Beaufort, who began coaching synchronized swimming since her daughter picked up the sport, said her qualification for the provincial team is the result of a lot of hard work.

“She’s come a long way [ . . . ] She’s matured as a kid too. Before it was like, ‘Woo, we’re just going to have fun and this is great and we’re going to go buy popsicles at the end,’ and now it’s like, ‘I’m going to try to get a good score and I’m going to try to keep my legs straight,” she said.

Beaufort said her daughter’s talent has gotten her a nod from a high-performance national program in Ottawa, the same program that Mya Fortin joined at 12 years old in 2017. At 11, Beaufort-Bradley would be the youngest swimmer to make that leap if she chooses to go next year.

“We’re still debating what we want to do because she’s still only 11,” said Beaufort. “We’re literally sitting on a fence. We really love our club.”

For the moment, though, Beaufort-Bradley is focused on the moment, training hard for the upcoming Calgary swim meet, a national competition for synchronized swimming that will bring hundreds of swimmers from different age levels under one roof.

She said she has been working on improving certain moves, such as the eggbeater, a particular way of treading water, and the barracuda, a vertical plunge into the water where the swimmer’s legs must remain dead straight.

Beaufort-Bradley said while she is still working on many of her moves, she gets a rush from being in competition with other girls her age. “I’m better when [there’s] competition,” she said.

While this is a huge opportunity in her young career to get exposure at a national scale, the youngster is not fazed by the size of the moment.

“I don’t usually get nervous about anything,” she said, adding that her mindset before swim meets is to lock in and get rid of distractions.

“This is my time to shine and I can show them how [good I am], and then I just think of what I have to do next, one step at a time.”

Beaufort-Bradley said while she is happy with the accomplishment of making Team Quebec, she hasn’t quenched her thirst for high-level competitive swimming quite yet.

“Making it national is realistic, but maybe making it to the Olympics.”