Canadian swimmers flail, fail in pool

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This article was published 07/10/2010 (5713 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DELHI, India — Canada’s swim team absorbed a rude slap in the face on Wednesday at the Commonwealth Games, with Julia Wilkinson’s bronze medal in the women’s 100-metre backstroke the lone medal on a night full of depressingly familiar fourths, fifths and worse.

The most disappointing result was the fifth-place finish turned in by world record-holder Annamay Pierse in the women’s 200-metre breaststroke, but the Edmonton native had plenty of company.

Both the men’s and women’s 4×200-metre freestyle relay teams placed fourth; in the men’s 100-metre backstroke, Charles Francis of Montreal was fifth and Tobias Oriwol of Toronto was seventh; Scott Dickens of Vancouver was fifth in the men’s 100-metre breaststroke; Montreal’s Victoria Poon, second-ranked after the semifinals, wound up sixth in the women’s 100-metre freestyle final.

“I’m not sure we’ve had a night like this in a while,” said Pierre Lafontaine, Swimming Canada’s CEO and national coach. “If it’s going to happen, it might as well happen today because we’ve got 20 months to the (2012) Olympic Games.

“They’ve got to realize that there is not an easy race out there.”

Randy Bennett, the team’s head coach, said the team’s conversion rate — athletes in finals who make it to the podium — was disappointing, but he didn’t have any answers for the bad night.

“We got punched in the nose today and we’re going to come back. If we don’t respond, then we’re no good. But I think we’ll respond well,” he said.

Canada, remember, started the swim meet with a bang on Monday night, when distance freestyler Ryan Cochrane of Victoria won the men’s 400 metres, Wilkinson won a bronze in the women’s 200-metre individual medley and Stefan Hirniak of Victoria won a bronze in the men’s 200-metre butterfly.

Pierse had no answers, either, and precious few words, period.

“It was terrible, absolutely terrible,” Pierse said after being overtaken in the final 125 metres by a trio of Australians, led by former world record-holder Liesel Jones, who won the race in two minutes 25.38 seconds, leading an Aussie podium sweep. “It was awful, the whole thing.”

Pierse faded in the second half of the race, yielding fourth place to training partner, Martha McCabe of Toronto

“Honestly, I don’t know, I have no idea,” Pierse said. “I should have swam way better than that. It was just ridiculous.”

— Postmedia News