Canada will send a mix of experienced international medallists and national team newcomers to the 12th FINA World Swimming Championships (25m).
Set for Doha, Qatar, from Dec. 3 to 7, the biennial world short-course championships gather the world’s fastest swimmers for a top-level showdown in the 25-metre pool.
Five of the 10 Canadian swimmers have won medals at major international competitions, including Olympics, world championships and Commonwealth Games.
Swimming Canada High Performance Atkinson highlighted the presence of such experienced athletes as Victoria distance specialist Ryan Cochrane, and butterflyers Audrey Lacroix and Katerine Savard, both of Pont-Rouge, Que.
“All three were gold medallists at this summer’s Commonwealth Games and their experience will be of great benefit in Doha,” Atkinson said.
The eight-woman, two-man team also includes such promising swimmers as West Vancouver’s Emily Overholt, 16, and 20-year-old Kierra Smith of Kelowna, B.C., both of whom made their senior international debuts this summer.
“This is a strong, targeted group that will perform competitively at the international level,” Atkinson added.
The team was selected based on summer results, including the Commonwealth Games, Pan Pacific Championships, Junior Pan Pacific Championships, Youth Olympic Games and Canadian Swimming Championships. Spots were offered to ranked and available athletes according to FINA World Rankings as of Sept. 7.
Canada will host the next edition of these championships in 2016 when Windsor, Ont., welcomes the world.
Complete team list:
Last Name First name Club
Caldwell Hilary Pacific Sea Wolves/HPC-Vic
Cantin Geneviève ULaval (Que.)
Cochrane Ryan Island Swimming/HPC-Victoria
Lacroix Audrey PPO (Montreal)
McCabe Martha Toronto SC/HPC-Ontario
Overholt Emily West Vancouver Otters SC/HPC-Vancouver
Savard Katerine CAMO (Montreal)
Smith Kierra Liquid Lightning SC (Kelowna, B.C.)
Van Beilen Tera UBC Dolphins/HPC-Vancouver
Wood Russell Cascade SC (Calgary)
Staff:
Last Name First Name Position
Atkinson John Team Leader
Bennett Randy Head Coach
McKinnon Ken Team Coach
Olson Graham Race Analysis
Castro Ron RMT
Beckwith Brian RMT
Hanan Janice Team Manager
Swimming News courtesy of Swimming Canada.
The system is ludicrous. Plans are changed on the dime, the coaching reward incentives are short term and they don’t specialize the swimmers until after a major breakthrough and/or age. Females empirically peak earlier than males, making this system lop sided. Swanston did a very detailed run down and the link is above.
Either incentives for older athletes need to be established or specialization happens earlier.
Selecting a freestyle relay team out of this group will be interesting.
US Swimming’s selection procedures look very simple compared to that article about Canadian Swimming! I’m sorry to hear Canada is struggling though.
Notice there are only 2 guys on the team. Most Canadian male swimmers above the age of 22 have quit because of Swimming Canada’s ludicrous age-weighted selection procedures for major international events.
Here’s a link to a pretty interesting editorial about it
http://matthewswanston25.com/2014/09/04/dear-swimming-canada-figure-it-out/
This policy was just put in 9 months ago, swimmers in Canada have been quitting early for years before this policy was put in. The age weighted policy is to allow for a renaming to occur on the Canadian team, as the big fish in the small pond culture has choked off the growth of our rather large up and coming stable