Alexandra Gabor started swimming roughly 11 years ago.

And she had some formative experiences in her early years with the sport.

One was watching the swimmers in the 2000 Summer Olympic Games held in Sydney, Australia.

"So that's obviously been one of my goals since then. I told myself I want to make the Olympics, and I had Beijing set out, but being a seven-year-old I didn't see how realistic it would be to make the Olympics in eight years,” said the F.H. Collins Secondary School student.

Another was a book she read when she was 10 years old, Gold in the Water: The True Story of Ordinary Men and Their Extraordinary Dream of Olympic Glory, by P.H. Muller.

This is all a while back, so much so that Gabor, now 17, speaks in rough numbers.

Since, she has amassed an absurd number of records, both locally and nationally: 72 club records, 21 provincial records and five national records.

Those results earned her a full athletic scholarship to Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., near San Francisco, in the fall.

"There was a swimmer in there that went to Stanford, and the whole book is kind of based around swimming in Santa Clara – near Stanford – and since then I've wanted to go to Stanford,” she said.

"I didn't know how realistic it would be, seven or eight years down the road from when I read the book, but I got a t-shirt that said Stanford Swimming, and I made it my goal, and then miraculously somehow it just happened.”

It became real a couple weeks ago, when Gabor officially enrolled.

But what got her there were her beginnings as a Glacier Bear.

Come the weekend, she will swim in her final home meet with the club, at the Yukon Invitational at the Canada Games Centre.

She remembers her first Yukon Invitational, in 2001. Vaguely.

"I swam a lot of events, I remember that much, a lot of sprints, a lot of breaststrokes, for some reason, a lot of backstrokes,” she said, adding that she watched videos of those early days not long ago.

"And it brought back a lot of good memories. I don't have any bad memories from those swimming days, and I remember all the coaches and everyone at the club being really supportive of me and all the other swimmers in the club. I hope it still feels like that for the younger swimmers in the club right now.”

Gabor won't be swimming in quite as many events in her last Yukon Invitational.

Instead, she's looking to compete in the 50-metre free, 100-m free and possibly 200-m free.

Rathar than looking to smash more records, she's looking to savour the experience.

"I'm really just going to be focused on trying to race my best and have a lot of fun and really finish it off on a positive note, and not swim as fast as I'd like and be all angry about that, because that's really not what it's all about, especially at this stage of the season,” she said.

"This meet, I hope it'll be a nice way to wrap things up…I hope it's a really good time for everyone in the club, to see where they can go and really set some goals, because I know the club can go really far and I know the swimmers in the club can go really far, as long as they let themselves. I won't be around to see it, but hopefully when I come back in the summer, everyone will be super fast and everyone will still be having a great time. That's really what it's about.”

She knows that because that's how it was for her coming up.

"I always wanted to see how fast I could go, that was a big thing, of trying to improve my times, not going after records or anything like that, just trying to get best times, because they were still relatively easy to reach back then.”

Gabor will continue to train in Whitehorse throughout the summer before heading south in September.

Her last race representing the Glacier Bears will be the Summer Nationals in Pointe-Claire in Montreal at the end of July.

Most recently, Gabor was one of three Yukoners – along with Mackenzie Downing and Bronwyn Pasloski, who missed out on making Team Canada at the 2011 World Championship Trials held in Victoria, B.C., at the beginning of April.

Gabor was feeling less than 100 per cent for the trials, which showed in her results: 15th in the 200-m free and 16th in the 100-m free.

In December, she competed in the World Aquatic Championships in Dubai, UAE, failing there too to get personal best times.

"This season hasn't been the best. I've had a few illnesses right during the swim meets, which is obviously not the best, kind of messes with the performances a bit,” Gabor said.

So it's safe to say that her scholarship to Stanford – which she accepted in November – is the highlight of her last season as a Glacier Bear.

"I have no regrets with the swimming that I've done so far, and I'm really excited to go on to the next stage,” she said.

"It effects the rest of my life, and it's been a goal of mine that I've accomplished, a goal that I've had for eight years or so. It's the highlight of my life, I guess I could say, going to Stanford.

"I've been really proud to be a Glacier Bear, and I'm really thankful for all the opportunities and everything that I've accomplished. I wouldn't be swimming if it weren't for the Glacier Bears.”