Swimming Canada will begin its selection for the 2014 Pan Pac and Commonwealth Games on Wednesday, April 2nd in Victoria, British Columbia, and the psych sheets are out.
The two most noteworthy absences from those sheets are the absence of one Canadian star, and one potential future star, from the rankings.
One is defending 200 meter backstroke bronze medalist from the World Championships Hilary Caldwell. SwimSwam’s Mitch Bowmile spoke to Caldwell while preparing previews for this meet and she confirmed her intent to participate at the trials, which Swimming Canada followed-up with a confirmation of today, so assume she’ll be there. She’ll face a deep field that includes the likes of Sinead Russell, Dominique Bouchard, and the defending NCAA 200 backstroke champion Brooklynn Snodgrass.
Update: Swimming Canada confirmed Caldwell intends to compete
Also absent from the race is 20-year old Ashton Baumann, son of the legendary Alex Baumann. His absence comes though his sister Tabitha is entered in the meet.
Ashton Baumann was on the World Championships team in the 200 breaststroke last summer, where he placed 24th in a lifetime best of 2:13.46.
Update: Baumann has suffered a stress fracture to his rib, and is in New Zealand recovering now. He will return to Edmonton at the end of April to continue training with Derrick Schoof according to his father Alex, who is the CEO of High Performance Sport New Zealand.
Among those entered in the meet is breaststroker Martha McCabe, who will be a medal contender (if not favorite) at both the Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacs in the 200 breaststroke. She missed time earlier this year with a stress fracture in her clavicle, but will swim all three breaststroke distances at Trials. That includes the 200, where she leads a daunting field that includes Tera van Beilen, Ashley McGregor, Rachel Nicol, Kierra Smith, and Tianna Rissling, plus guest appearancse from Ireland’s Fiona Doyle, who trains in Canada, and Sycerika McMahon, who trains in the United States.
Other than that, not a ton of surprises here. Recent double NCAA Champion, and NCAA Record holder, Brittany MacLean of ESwim will test her speed and range by swimming the 100, 200, 400, and 800 meter freestyles. She is not, however, entered into the 1500 free: the event closest in distance to the 1650 yard free NCAA Record she broke just over a week ago.
after maclean stellar performances at NCAA’s it will be interesting to see if she can bust out like that on the world scene. everyone always says NCAA’s is one of the hardest and fastest meets in the world, but it is in YARDS and as we know many elite yard swimmer fail to transfer over to long course. Still, i really liked that girls attitude and race tactics. i’d love to see her in the mix with lotte friis and katie ledecky in the world ranks of the distance events
How come NCAA 100 back champ Paige Miller is showing as a foreign swimmer?
Canadian Law: if you spend more than three years in Texas, Ottawa doesn’t want you back – so she’s been dis-owned, eh!
Why only Texas?
Don’t forget about NCAA Champ Brooklynn Snodgrass in the 200 back! Should be a great race, hope Caldwell is part of it.
Don’t Forget – how could we! Swimming Canada reconfirmed what Hilary told us, that it seems to be just an error.
Baumann is an injury.