Campbell River’s Mackenzie Paddington takes three golds and a bronze at National Championships

Paddington currently swims for the University of Minnesota in the NCAA's Big 10 Conference

Mackenzie Paddington celebrates her gold medal victory in the 100-m freestyle on Sunday.

Mackenzie Paddington celebrates her gold medal victory in the 100-m freestyle on Sunday.

Campbell River’s Mackenzie Padington rebounded from the disappointment of not being named to this year’s Commonwealth Games roster, by showing up at the 2018 RBC Canadian Swimming Championships in Montreal and showing the swimming world she’s a force to be reckoned with.

She was easily Canada’s top freestyler this weekend, earning three gold medals including Sunday’s huge win in the 100-m freestyle.

Padington clocked 55.77 seconds with Kyla Leibel of Red Deer, Alta., second in 55.95 and Aleksa Gold of Toronto third in 56.09.

Padington also won the 800-metre freestyle and 200-metre freestyle.

Oh, and she added a bronze to her medal total by placing third in the 400 free.

“I’m so happy to end the competition on that note,” said Padington, who is headed to Swimming Canada’s High Performance Centre-Victoria this summer.

”My other races were actually slower than I hoped but tonight I’m really happy with that 100 free. Once I knew it was going to be a close race that really got me going.”

Padington currently swims for the University of Minnesota in the NCAA’s Big 10 Conference and hopes to join team Canada when they head to the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.

More results from this weekend’s championships can be found at swimming.ca

Campbell River Mirror