6 Named to Canadian World Champs Team After Open Water Trials on Grand Cayman

Canadian Open Water Swimming Trials

• Saturday, April 15, 2023
• Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
• Full Results

With no Canadian open water venues suitable for a proper trials meet in April (it’s 43 degrees at Lac Megantic as I type), Canada on Saturday took the country’s open water trials to the Cayman Islands, hosting its first open water trials event in four years.

Previously, Canada was making selective entries to big international FINA meets and using those results to select teams in a controversial process, but one necessitated by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A big field attended the meet – 16 women and 15 men in the premier 10km event. That’s as compared to just 18 total swimmers who competed the last time Canada held the meet in the Cayman Islands in 2019.

A 5km race was also held on Sunday, where Canadian champions were crowned, but World Championship roster selections were made based on the results of the 10k on Saturday.

The top two finishers of each 10km event will race the 10km at Worlds, while the 3rd place finisher gets one of the country’s two spots in the 5km at Worlds.

The meet was also a selector for the Pan American Games, with those teams to be named on Monday.

Men’s 10km Race

Top 5:

1. Eric Brown, PCSC – 1:55:24.7
2. Eric Hedlin, UVPCS – +2.5
3. Benjamin Cote, KSC – +21.3
4. Liam Clawson-Honeyman, PCSC – +1:29.0
5. Jon McKay, UVPCS = +1:31.6

This race was wide open with no Hau-Li Fan, the country’s top finisher in the men’s 10k at Worlds last year (17th). Eric Brown and veteran Eric Hedlin battled to the wire, but it was Brown that took the win with a big surge over the last 700 meters of the race.

Brown is already on the pool roster, but there are still about two weeks between the open water 10k and the pool 1500 in Fukuoka this summer. That makes for a long trip, but not a terrible turnaround.

“At the end I know I also have the speed so I could just come home. It kind of all went to plan,” said Brown, the 400, 800 and 1,500-m champion at the recent pool Trials. “I’m excited to see what I can do this summer. I’ll try things out and do the double with pool and open water, and just have fun with it a week apart.”

Brown finished 26^th in the 10-km at last year’s worlds.

Hedlin, a two-time world medallist in the 5-km distance, set the pace early and had held the lead most of the way.

“Unfortunately I led the least important part of the race. I would rather lead into the finish, but I’ll take it, it’s good,” said Hedlin, adding that he swam alongside a stingray he spotted in the clear water.

Cote came third, 21.3 seconds off the pace and just ahead of Liam Clawson-Honeyman of the High Performance Centre – Vancouver (+22.1).

Two of the three members of the Worlds team for men, Brown and Cote, train at the University of Florida.

Women’s 10km Race

Top 5:

1. Emma Finlin, EKSC – 2:05:00.6
2. Abby Dunford, UNCAN2 – +36.5
3. Bailey O’Regan, UNCAN2 – +5:49.0
4. Julia Strojnowska, LOSC – +5:51.8
5. Megan Frost, PCSC – +6:19.2

Emma Finlin and Abby Dunford, Canada’s two representatives in the 5k at last year’s World Championships, swam comfortably ahead of the field on Saturday in the women’s race.

The two exchanged the lead most of the way, but Finlin finally pulled ahead as the last lap began.

“I’m really happy about it. It’s my first 10-km so it was mostly for the experience but it’s really great to qualify for worlds in open water,” said Finlin.

The 17-year-old, who finished 28^th for Canada in the 5-km at last year’s worlds, already had a spot on the pool team by winning the 1,500 at the recent Trials.

Dunford, 17, held on to finish 36.5 seconds behind, while O’Regan finished 5:49 off the pace, holding off Julia Strojnowska of Langley & Abbotsford Olympians Swim Club (+5:51.8).

“I just tried to stay with Emma for as long as I could. We did an amazing job racing each other. The last two laps I just tried to get home as fast as possible and just try to keep my spot in second place and keep my mind strong,” said Dunford, who represented Canada at last year’s worlds, finishing 38^th in the 10-km. “I think I did a pretty good job at doing that so I’m really happy about the way I finished.”

Dunford and O’Regan both train in the United States with the Sarasota Sharks under Brent Arckey, who is also coaching the team’s pool superstar Summer McIntosh.

Roster/Staff

Swimming Canada Distance/Open Water Coach Mark Perry will serve as Open Water Head Coach at worlds. He will be joined by Ryan Cloutson (UVic) and Martin Gingras (Pointe-Claire) as team coaches. Cynthia Pincott will be team manager.

“We’re excited for the world championships. We’ve got a fairly young team with a mix of some experience on the men’s side,” Perry said. “Eric Hedlin is a veteran with a couple of world medals under his belt and we’ll be building on the work that we did with a couple on the women’s side and with Eric Brown on the men’s side. They’ve been last year and they’ve got some experience, and then a couple of new additions with Ben Cote and Bailey getting a chance to do the 5-km. They’re pretty excited about that and it’s good to have some new members of the team.”

SWIMMERS OPEN WATER – NAGEURS

TEAM STAFF – PERSONNEL

5km Race

In the 5-km race Sunday, Finlin (1:04:26.2), Dunford (+1:00.2) and O’Regan (+1:02) repeated their 1-2-3 finish from Saturday. On the men’s side, Hedlin (59:57.6) took the 5-km comfortably ahead of UVPCS teammate Jon McKay (+17.0). Ilya Kharun, already a member of the pool team, came third 2:37.5 behind Hedlin.