Oly swim trials get green light

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This article was published 20/05/2021 (1575 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canada’s Olympic swim trials can proceed next month in Toronto, Swimming Canada announced Thursday.

The organization said in a release that Toronto Public Health has confirmed that the June 19-23 event can take place at the Pan Am Sports Centre under the exemption for high-performance sport in Ontario’s stay-at-home order.

The trials are the primary means of selection for Canada’s swim team for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.

They were originally scheduled for May 24-28 but were pushed back due to restrictions around the COVID-19 pandemic.

Six swimmers were pre-selected to the Olympic team in January.

Kylie Masse of LaSalle, Ont., Penny Oleksiak of Toronto, Margaret Mac Neil of London, Ont., Taylor Ruck of Kelowna, B.C., Sydney Pickrem of Halifax and Markus Thormeyer of Newmarket, Ont., were chosen in events and distances in which they excel.

“I do think it’s a good idea for the athletes to perform on demand to make the team because that’s what’s gonna be expected of them in Tokyo,” University of Manitoba swim coach Vlastik Cerny told the Free Press. “And I’m still operating under the assumption that the Games will go on.”

U of M’s Kelsey Wog was not pre-selected, which came as a surprise to Cerny, whose star athlete was the fastest 100- and 200-metre female breaststroker and second fastest 200 individual medley swimmer in the country in the past year.

“Even though they kind of pre-selected them, the assumption was always there were going to be trials,” added Cerny. “And even though they pre-selected them, they still had to perform at the trials to earn their spot. If it came down to selecting the team on past performance, I’m thinking (Wog) would have been selected to the team.”

Four other Winnipeggers also received their invitations to the Olympic trials, including the U of M’s Daniel Boguski, Sarah Watson of the University of Akron (100 fly, 50 freestyle), backstroker Megan James of Manta and Peyton Rerie of the St. James Seals.

Of those, Watson is currently training in the U.S. and unlikely to attend due to the two-week quarantine requirement. Rerie is also not planning to attend.

Despite the disruption to the competitive schedule, Cerny said Wog’s training is on schedule.

“Kelsey’s training has been fantastic,” said Cerny. “Just this morning, she recorded her best performances in our tests… We’ve spent basically the last four or five months just training. We’re doing race simulations, but she is the fittest she’s ever been.”

The Paralympic portion of Canada’s swim trials was cancelled because the June dates conflict with an international para-swimming event in Berlin.

Swimming Canada provisionally selected seven swimmers to the team on May 11 based on performances at the 2019 World Para Swimming Championship in London, and said remaining spots will be filled by reviewing training logs and data, as well as a video-recorded time trial performance, from eligible swimmers.

“The organization has explored several options, including holding the trials elsewhere in North America. Each scenario comes with its own positive and negative factors, but we believe holding Olympic Trials in Canada, at our premier pool in the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre, is the best option,” Swimming Canada chief executive officer Ahmed El-Awadi said in a statement.

Swimming Canada says it is working toward a plan that will include preliminary heats and finals for distances 200 metres and shorter, with timed finals for distances 400 metres and longer.

The organization also announced a pre-Tokyo Olympics camp in Toyota, Japan, has been cancelled. Instead, the team will convene in Vancouver before travelling directly to the Games in July.

“Our long-standing partners at the University of British Columbia have shown incredible flexibility and hard work on short notice to enable us to hold a staging camp in Canada,” Swimming Canada high performance director John Atkinson said.

— The Canadian Press / staff