ABOUT CJ
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I started swimming competitively for the Guelph Marlins Aquatic Club when I was just 5 years old. My parents wanted me to be able to swim proficiently and Red Cross kept failing me because I was too small and kept getting too cold to swim. My first coach was Mel Davis, father of Canadian swimming great Victor Davis, also a native of Guelph, Ontario. I qualified for Canadian Senior Nationals when I was 13 and swam on several provincial tour teams. In 1988 at the age of just 15 I swam at my first of three Olympic Trials and placed 2nd in the 400IM. I was not selected to the Olympic Team but instead the B team and traveled to Moscow for a dual meet against the USSR B team.
From 1988-1994 I was a member of the Canadian National Swim Team and competed at the 1989 & 1993 Pan-Pacific Games in Japan, the 1990 World Fina Cup in Rome, and the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria BC where I placed 8th in the 400IM. In 1992 I accepted an athletic scholarship and headed off to college at Arizona State University. As a Lady Sun Devil swimmer I was a 4yrs NCAA All-American and earned 4 individual Pac-10 titles and took 3rd in the 400IM at the 1993 & 1994 NCAA Swimming Championships.
After graduating in 1996 I decided to take a break from competing and took a position as a Landscape Architect at a local Scottsdale, AZ construction company. It did not take long however for the local triathletes to recruit and get me hooked on triathlon. I raced my first triathlon in 1998 and competed as an amateur for 3 years before turning professional in 2001. For 6 years I focused on the ITU World Cup Triathlon circuit, competing in World Cups and Continental Cups around the world. I also started my own Landscape Architect Company, Intrinsic Design Ltd., bought a house, and adopted two retired racing greyhounds.
A little overwhelmed and ready to make a change I packed up and moved back home to Canada in 2006 to focus solely on triathlon and in 2007 made the jump to Xterra Off-Road Triathlon racing. I currently split my time between the warm winter weather somewhere south and my hometown of Guelph where I work part-time as a landscape architect.
December 13, 1972
Guelph, Ontario Canada
Ann and Ken Jeffrey
Karen Jeffrey
BSc in Landscape Architecture - Arizona State University 96
Outstanding student graduate School of Landscape Architecture 96
Outstanding student graduate College of Architecture 96
Top female student athlete graduate 96
Heather Farr award for top female student athlete 97
Traveling, Hiking and Camping, Scuba Diving
Victor Davis, Silken Laumann