Winnipeg’s Van Landeghem wins bronze at swimming worlds

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This article was published 26/07/2017 (3324 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg swimmer and Olympic medallist Chantal Van Landeghem helped Canada to a bronze-medal finish in the mixed 4×100-metre medley event at the FINA world championships in Budapest, Hungary today.

Van Landeghem swam the freestyle portion — the final leg — in a morning qualifying race, ensuring Canada had a shot at a medal in the afternoon.

Using a rotating roster of swimmers, the Canadians went with a different lineup in the relay final — inserting Penny Oleksiak, who won four medals at the Rio Summer Olympics — and, ultimately, tied with China for third place behind the champion Americans and the runners-up from Australia.

The U.S set a world record with a time of three minutes, 38.56 seconds, while the Canadians — Kylie Masse, Richard Funk, Oleksiak and Yuri Kisil — finished at 3:41.25.

Javier Acevedo, Funk, Rebecca Smith and Van Landeghem qualified the Canadian team third after swimming the relay in 3:44.46 seconds in the morning.

“It’s a different atmosphere before the race in a mixed relay,” said Funk, who trains at Canada’s High Performance Centre in Toronto with Smith and Van Landeghem. “Swimming a relay with two people I train with every day, and Javi, who I’ve been close with the last couple years, is a lot of fun, and a good opportunity to do something a little different.”

“It was tough this morning but it’s a really fun race,” added Van Landeghem, who was part of Canada’s 4×100-m freestyle relay team that finished third at the Rio Games.

The bronze is the second Van Landeghem has won at the worlds. She helped propel Canada to a bronze in the 4x100m mixed free relay in 2015.

— Staff