By Madeline Folsom on SwimSwam
The Keystone Pipeline transports oil across Canada and into the United States. The Knoxville pipeline is transporting elite swimmers and divers from Canada to Knoxville, Tennessee and it is only growing larger.
The Tennessee women’s recruiting class of 2026 has been making a statement, and their additions of #1 ranked Charlotte Crush, #4 ranked Molly Sweeney, and #16 ranked Eliza Wallace on the American side (among others). They also have three Canadian women coming in who all have international experience, Madison Kryger, Matea Gigovic, and Leah Tigert. Kryger was on Canada’s senior World Championship team earlier this summer while Gigovic and Tigert both swam at World Juniors
This isn’t a new recruiting ground for the Volunteers, however. They have been drawing talent from the United States’ northern neighbors since 2016 when Tess Cieplucha moved to Tennessee to train with the Volunteers. While there, Cieplucha saw improvement every year, dropping nearly nine seconds in the 400 IM short course over her time in college. She also made Canada’s Olympic Team in 2021 in the 400 IM, swimming 4:44.54 in the event to finish 13th overall. That same year, Cieplucha won the SC World Title in the 400 IM at the 2021 SC World Championships, swimming 4:25.55 to win by almost a full second.
Tennessee Head Coach Matt Kredich credits Cieplucha with helping build the Canadian trust in the Tennessee program saying she “was hungry for a great team experience. She got better every year she was here, and I think that because of her success and development into a SC World Champion and first time Olympian, I think it made it okay for others to look here.”
She wasn’t the first Canadian Kredich coached. Before moving to Knoxville to head the program there, he was the head coach at Brown from 1993-2001 and he says that his experience with high end Canadian swimmers with that program is part of the reason he continued recruiting them in Tennessee. “The level of coach education and overall coaching in Canada is really high, and so I always felt that the Canadians I coached had been really well prepared as age group and senior swimmers.”
Last season, Tennessee had three athletes on the women’s team from the Maple Leaf Country, and all three were NCAA scorers. Freshman Ella Jansen brought in 18 points with her 9th place finishes in the 500 free and 400 IM. Senior Brooklyn Douthwright scored 11, and junior Regan Rathwell scored 5.
All three athletes were on the 2024 Paris Olympic team for Canada and Douthwright and Jansen both made the Worlds team this summer. Kredich thinks that this proved that “elite development can continue to happen in this particular NCAA environment.”
The success from these swimmers has made Tennessee a desirable location for Canadian athletes looking for the NCAA experience, and on top of the three top tier swimmers joining the school in 2026, they also added Florida transfer Lilly Daley as a junior and freshman diver Thomas Ciprick for this season.
The Volunteers started their season last year on October 24 against Louisville. That meet is scheduled for Thursday, October 30 this year.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Canadian Swimmers Are Finding a New Home At the University of Tennessee
