The 2023 Canadian Summer Championships have been moved from Edmonton to Toronto after local clubs were forced to withdraw hosting duties.
The event, which usually takes place mid-summer and serves as a target meet for many of Canada’s best swimmers, was initially scheduled to take place from Aug. 1-6, 2023 in Edmonton, Alberta. The host facility was likely going to be the Kinsmen Sports Centre, home of the Edmonton Keyano Swim Club, which played host to the 2019 Summer Championship event.
However, the event will move to the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre (TPASC) on the same dates.
Swimming Canada told SwimSwam that local clubs had to withdraw hosting duties due to a variety of factors including pool closures, decreasing membership numbers and official requirements for hosting.
TPASC, which has hosted the majority of Canada’s biggest domestic events since 2015 (when it hosted the Pan American Games), was able to provide pool time and the necessary support from Swim Ontario and a local club to take over as hosts of the event.
This past summer, the Canadian Summer Championships took place at the Olympic Park in Montreal. The event features youth, junior and senior categories, and generally attracts the best age groupers in the country plus the top names who aren’t representing Canada at a conflicting major international meet.
City of Edmonton has been a difficult partner to the swimming community in Edmonton. Closed all the pools for 1 year during COVID. Just closed a pool related to a High School because of insurance, maintenance issues. Pool closures for maintenance problems cause access problems for the clubs.
Swim Canada needs a reliable partner….unsure if the City of Edmonton can deliver when it comes to the Kinsmen.
Shouldn’t be a surprise at all. Both Edmonton clubs have been decimated since covid and the larger one is doing better only to high intake post covid But it will take some time to re build.
What!
While Atkinson does interviews on his celebration of success with basically one training center (fueled by a bunch of American based swimmers) where he basically can’t stop patting himself on the back at his success while meanwhile Swim Canada has completely abandoned the club system and allowed it to fall into disarray with very little support. So many club teams are on life support up there from what close friends tell me. And Swimming Canada just ignores the problems.
Not to mention whoever that no-name guy is that supposed to be running Swimming Canada.
So clubs can’t even manage to host meets outside their beloved training center.
SHOCKED!!! SHOCKED we say!!!
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