Top Age Group Ranking Profile

We are proud to spotlight a group of 15-17 swimmers who are making their mark within the TAG (Top Age Group) Rankings across Canada. Recognized through the leadership and support of the Canadian Swim Coaches Association (CSCA), these athletes represent the next wave of Canadian swimming excellence.

As we launch this series, we celebrate the coaches, clubs, and families who support these swimmers — and we look forward to following their journey as they continue to rise within Canada’s performance pathway.

You can hear it in his voice.

It’s a supreme sense of positivity and certainty that registers with Liam Paterson – and especially when the conversation targets around the words “swimming” and “academics”.

Focussed, decisive and steadfast is this 17-year-old from Collingwood – a beautiful four-season town just north of Toronto. Known for its recreational atmosphere of slopes and trails, history and heritage, it’s also home to one of Canada’s top young swimmers.

While the town has an open invitation for residents to help build a bright vision for the future, that’s already happening courtesy of a tall, lanky and talented athlete.

We’re talking about Paterson.

The way he’s been going, with dominating performances in aquatics, Paterson just might be a prime candidate for the next prestigious “Key to the City”. That’s the highest civic honor presented by the municipal government to esteemed residents to recognize their outstanding contributions.

Paterson is known in Collingwood as being the best teenage swimmer in town – and, quite likely, in the region, too.

He’s already on the list of elite age class athletes by the Canadian Swimming Coaches Association’s rankings. It’s a system that inspires the next generation of exclusive swimmers across the country. To simplify things, Paterson is on that exciting and growing snapshot list of the best in Canada.

“What motivates me, in water or anywhere else, is being the best person I can be – that’s it,” he said. “Life is not long. You’re young once and you want to make the best of it.”

Paterson is no egocentric boaster of his capability, power and skills. Not him. He just focuses on training hard, improving his times, as well as benefiting from sound coaching and he spends countless hours at his other home – the Collingwood Centennial Aquatic Centre.

Like most youngsters, swim lessons – for him it was at age five - is where it all started. He’s now in his 10th year of competitive swimming with the Collingwood Clippers Swim Club.

Over at Our Lady of the Bay Catholic High School, he’s finished grade 11 – and is on the academic honor roll. A former winner of the school’s Most Valuable Player award in swimming, Paterson has zeroed in on the pool and on-land training eight days a week.

Interested in a career in business and economics, and an individual quite astute and perceptive, Paterson is looking at post-secondary studies in either Canada or the United States. To add to that, university swim programs are repeatedly following his success and offering scholarship opportunities.

Let’s examine some compelling statistics. Freestyle and butterfly are his primary strokes. Paterson won his first provincial medal in 2024, and it was a silver in the 100-metres butterfly at the Ontario Winter Swim Championships in Toronto.

At the recent Ontario Age Group championships, Paterson walked away with personal best times in six events and gold medals in four along with a silver.

His personal total medal count has now exceeded 100, of which many are hanging on a wall in his room to admire and re-create flashbacks to those superb performances.

As an example, he earned gold medals in the 50-metres freestyle, timed in 23.69 seconds. Also, the 100-metres freestyle in 51.75 seconds and the 50-metres butterfly clocked in 25.23 seconds.

“I swim to better myself – to build skills that go beyond the pool and help my work ethic and for the future,” said Paterson. “I’m the only one who can control my progress.”

Looking back to those days as a youngster, few would have pegged his success. Now, many are witnessing stardom.

While Paterson has had his ups and downs, he still has bitter memories, way back, of missing out on a provincial standard time in a race by 0.4 seconds – that is four-tenths of a second – which he vowed to improve.

He had the perfect lens for what may have been a problem. Less than 24 hours later, Paterson got a second chance in a time trial and improved by an incredible seven seconds.

Stiff challenges and pressure would gravitate toward hard work. For him, at 6-foot-1, persistency and dependability, would always lead to strong finishes and augur well in his mind.

“It’s about consistency, finding ways to grow,” he said while complimenting his coach Rebecca Ryerson, teammates and his parents for their inspiration and support. “What you put in, is what you get out”.

In addition to owning a variety of swim records in Collingwood, he finds time to – yes, coach. He’s been doing that, call it a role model for younger swimmers, since his days in grade 8. His focus is with a junior development group.

There’s more. He’s now pursuing a triathlon this summer. That’s a combination of bicycling, swimming and running. If that’s not enough, there’s one more very important challenge that’s, ah, no longer a challenge.

Earlier this year, Paterson competed in Swim-A-Thon finishing the five kilometres course in a remarkable one hour, one minute and 59 seconds. Try that in your spare time.

At the 2026 Bell Canadian Swim Trials, held earlier this month in Montreal, Paterson placed in the top 10 in four Junior-age events. In the 100-metres freestyle, he had a personal best time of 51.93. Other placings were in the 50-metres butterfly (25.41), the 100-metres butterfly (56.02) and 50-metres freestyle (24.21).

A few closing words from Patterson.

“You don’t have to start out great to become great,” said Paterson.

David Grossman is a veteran multi award-winning Journalist and Broadcaster with some of Canada’s major media, including the Toronto Star and SPORTSNET 590 THE FAN, and a Public Relations professional for 50+ years in Canadian sports and Government relations. In 2026, he was inducted to the Toronto Sports Hall of Honour with a Lifetime Achievement Award.