Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52FOCUS - SEPTEMBER 2016 43 determined that Anne’s powerful kick, while unusual, was not illegal and they let it stand, even stating that it was the “evolution of the sport.” It wouldn’t be the last time that Anne made waves. Her talent and de- termination preceded her. “The pool was my second home, “ Anne says now. “ I craved the smell of chlorine and I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way from making my mark.” And make it she did, cleaning up at most of her meets despite the fact that she and her family were struggling financially. When she couldn’t afford hotels at meets, she slept under her coat in stairwells while her teammates and opponents got a full night’s rest. Not that it mattered: she was unbeat- able, making the national swim team at fourteen and the Olympic team four years later. Anne’s Olympic memories are vivid but they aren’t the stuff of storybooks. “I had dislocated my knee right before trials and couldn’t do my whip kick so I thought my Olympic dreams had died.“ She was able to get a by onto the team due to past perfor- mances but her knee kept her from participating in the Opening Cere- monies. She ended up sneaking onto the roof of her building in the athlete’s village and watching them from above. The image still brings her to tears. “Seeing that bowl light up was a moment I will never forget.” And the gold medal race itself? “It was incredible. I wasn’t sure if my knee was going to act up but I knew that I couldn’t let it deter me.” It’s a lesson sheshareswithpeopletothisday.“You cannot swim anyone else’s race but your own. The moment you look else- where and fall off of your task, you’re done. So I just stayed on task.”And the results paid off. Anne got the moment she had dreamed about so many years ago in her childhood room in Whitby. She had her gold. In Anne’s eyes though, most of these pale in comparison to what she does now: coaching young swim- mers at the Pickering Swim Club. She takes the task of Head Coach very seriously and coming from the world of sports, where athletes are held to a higher standard, knows only too well that her young charges look to her as a role model. “I take a whole athlete approach to coach- ing my swimmers. It’s not just their bodies I train, but their minds and their spirits, too.” And though they love to hear about her successes, she makes sure to tell them about the place that failure plays in every athlete’s life. “The truth of the mat- ter is all athletes are human. We all share a common bond: emotion. We all feel. And it’s our failures, as much as our successes, that we learn from the most.” Anne gets as much, if not more joy in molding the lives of younger athletes as she did as an Olympic ath- lete. In fact, this year, she was named Youth Coach of the Year from Swim Canada for her work with one her best male swimmers, Warren Mayer, an accomplishment that she finds in- credibly gratifying. “It makes the 4:30 a.m. drives to the pool in February worth the effort.” These days, Anne gets a lot of her joy from her family life in Port Perry. By Laura Francis, Special to Focus on Scugog In 1984, eighteen year-old Anne Ottenbrite turned a dream into reality, picking up a gold medal in the 200-meter breaststroke, silver in the 100-meter breaststroke and bronze in the 4X100-meter medley relay. This card has become Anne’s autograph card which includes her at 18 years old proudly wearing her medals and her coaching photo on the right.