Hannah Forbes '21 Recruiting Profile

I started my swimming career nine years ago when I was 7 years old. I was a dual athlete for 7 years of my 9 years swimming.  I was a competitive paddler, specializing in racing K1, K2, K4 and war canoes. I have always been athletic and have completed two triathlons. The Fall of 2017, I decided to focus more on my swim training to become a more proficient swimmer and stopped paddling competitively. I joined an elite, team of six swimmers, called the Halifax Wavecutters to support my goal of becoming a more competitive swimmer. The summers of 2018 and 2019, when COVID was not a barrier, I found a passion in swimming Open Water events; I took Gold in 2018 and Silver in 2019 swimming the 1K event. My love of paddling on lakes supported my comfort level of swimming in lakes, giving me an edge over my competitors. 2020-21 is my 10th season of swimming and has been very different with COVID-19 and the global pandemic, but I remain positive and active in keeping fit to be race ready when swim meets recommence.

I am excited to be part of the varsity athlete experience and a positive academic and swim team atmosphere. I look forward to building new friendships and relationships with others in a college/university environment. I love being part of a team as it becomes an extension of family and a place to build lifelong friendships. I love to support my teammates in their successes and when they have challenges in the pool. I understand success and failure and always keep trying. Freestyle is my favorite stroke, but I am also working on my backstroke. I am open to feedback and always try to be responsive to changing my technique which will end up in faster swimming.

I am a dedicated and thoughtful teammate. I am willing to work to support the success of the team while improving my own swimming ability. I am open to different styles of coaching and many different sized teams. I have swam on large teams with 120 swimmers through to a small elite team of six swimmers. With this varied experience I believe I am adaptable to many team environments. I have trained for 5 hours a week when I was very young and now train at 20 hours a week. I love to swim and hope my passion is contagious.

Outside of the pool, one of my primary objectives is to obtain my undergraduate degree and then progress to medical school. My weighted GPA is currently a 5.0 in high school and I would like to maintain a 3.8 GPA or higher while in college/university. I pride myself on hard work and dedication to my academics and swimming. In fact, my academics and swimming complement one another and have made me tenacious and built up my grit. Outside of the pool and classroom I enjoy drawing, painting and even some long-boarding.