Chris Smith, 74, is the oldest Master to reach 1 million metres. He was also among the first members of MSC to start logging his metres - all the while maintaining his duties as president of Masters Swimming Canada and helping the Masters swimming organization in Bermuda.

Smith, 74, began logging his metres in the summer of 2005 when the Million Metre Challenge was in its testing stages as one component of MSC’s on line services. At home in Toronto, he swims about eight hours a week, putting in 50-80 kilometres a month, he says. The Trillium Y Masters Club at North York YMCA has four, two- hour workouts each week, so “it doesn’t take much” to get in the meters, he adds.

Then there are the metres he logs in the giant pool that is the Atlantic Ocean. Due to commitments with his family, properties and to swimming, he frequently heads to Barbados and Bermuda. A native of Bermuda he often swims 10 kilometres a day in the ocean, he says. He counts his strokes and knows distances between points “so it’s not a great difficulty to figure out” the mileage, he explains.

He likes the MMC because he loves swimming. There is a direct link between the amount of metres swimmers put into their workouts and their level of fitness, he says. The MMC is an incentive and “you’re always pushing yourself which makes you more fit.”

Smith joined Masters in 1989 at age 58 and first competed in 1990. But he has been swimming since he was four - luckily - in the sea around Bermuda. “My mother couldn’t get me out most of the time.” When he came to Aurora, Ontario, he turned to swimming in pools. He was the coach and captain of his high school team at age 18. He also taught swimming and lifesaving. “You could say I had some interest in swimming,” he laughs. He was then coach and captain of Royal Roads Military College in Victoria and the west coast’s Navy swim teams in 1953.

By the time he was studying architecture at the University of Toronto, he had developed an allergic reaction to chlorine and salt. Of course there were no goggles “in those days,” he recalls. He would be temporarily blinded but still playing water polo twice a week and learning to scuba dive.

By the mid-1960s he had acquired a new swimming role: that of swim parent. Smith has four children. He and his wife Alison Rice have been married for 28 years. Swim parenting almost inevitably turns a parent into an official. Smith stuck with the officials’ white uniforms, becoming a Level 5 official able to referee at international meets.

Smith’s love of swimming, in the world’s pools and oceans, has given him a great desire to give back to his sport, to encourage others to get involved and to support the development of programs and facilities so this can happen, he says. He has always volunteered to assist where he could; since retiring as an architect in 1995 Masters Swimming Canada has become his full time occupation.

In addition to officiating and running clubs and meets at the Masters and age group levels, Smith has volunteered to work on many committees and Boards at all levels of swimming in Canada. For as much as he craves swimming in the ocean, Smith also needs to be involved in the politics of swimming. It’s a logical step for someone who has dabbled in most areas of aquatics, and who once held the world record in a mixed relay. When he turned to Masters, “it didn’t take very long before I got into the politics of Masters.” He was on the Board of Masters Swimming Ontario in 1992 and became MSO president in 1996. He joined MSC in 2003 and became president in 2004. This past May, he was re-elected to what he says is his final two year term.

“Masters swimming has such potential to improve the fitness and lives of so many Canadian adults,” he says. He wants to strengthen Masters swimming at the national, provincial and club levels so more people can enjoy the benefits of swimming. “We also need to find far more people who will contribute to this most rewarding task.”

Smith looks forward to viewing the movie currently being made about the life of the late Victor Davis, the 1984 Olympic champion in the 200metre breaststroke. But he begs to differ about a comment made in the movie that swimming laps is a mindless pursuit.

With a lifetime connected to the sport in as many ways as he can be, Smith believes swimming is a spiritual experience: “I find swimming is more of a meditation, especially in the ocean.”