Image credit: Sienna Angove/Ohio State Buckeyes

By Marty Hastings

NCAA SWIMMING

Kamloops’ Angove of Buckeyes wins gold at conference swimming championships, earns All-Big Ten First Team honours

Mar 4, 2025 | 5:08 PM

KAMLOOPS — Sienna Angove posted a list of goals inside her locker at the start of her freshman year at The Ohio State University, among them racing in a final at the Big Ten Swim and Dive Championships.

The Buckeyes hosted the conference championships in February in Columbus, Ohio, and 18-year-old Angove obliterated her goal.

Kamloops’ Angove snared the first gold medal of her collegiate career, winning the 400-yard individual medley in a come-from-behind effort that helped cement her spots on the All-Big Ten First Team and the Big Ten All-Freshman Team.

“[My teammates and I who] were in that heat, we all came and hugged each other and then the whole team came running behind the blocks and it was kind of just like a mosh pit,” said Angove, who posted a time of 4:03.92 to win the 400 IM. “It was so much fun. I had tears of happiness.”

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The victory came on her mother’s birthday.

“That was my little birthday gift to her,” said Angove, whose Buckeyes won the conference team title for the fifth time in six years.

The NCAA Division One Swimming and Diving Championships are scheduled to take place later this month in Seattle.

Angove is aiming to qualify for the world championships later this year in Singapore and the Commonwealth Games next year in Scotland.

Last year, Angove proved she is among the fastest in the country at the Swimming Canada Olympic Trials in Toronto.

She posted times in the 100-metre freestyle and 200m freestyle that left her fingertips shy of spots on the 2024 Olympic Summer Games relay teams.

“It really just motivates me,” Angove said. “It just made me come into college hungry for more and I know that I can achieve more.”

Perhaps there is room for another sticky-note goal in that locker — 2028 Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles.

“It’s really been a dream of mine since I was a little kid,” Angove said. “I used to do gymnastics and swimming and I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to make the Olympics in both gymnastics and swimming.’ Then I grew up and realized that’s not really possible, but I picked swimming and it’s always in the back of my mind.”