Swimming Canada has announced their 2026 Commonwealth Games roster, and newly-minted world record holder Josh Liendo highlights Canada’s 12 person roster amid the absence of a few major names.
The 2026 Commonwealth Games will be held in Glasgow from July 23rd-August 2nd, and will be a stripped-down version of the typical competition with just 10 sports being featured, including swimming.
The roster looks very different from the one we predicted in August, and there are a few notable absences including Olympic medalist Ilya Kharun, who is coming off a bronze medal in the 100 fly at the 2025 World Championships.
World record holder Summer McIntosh is also absent from the the roster. She announced in August that she would not be attending the meet, opting instead to focus on the 2026 Pan Pacs, which will begin just 10 days after the conclusion of the Commonwealth Games.
The women’s roster is headlined by five-time Olympic medalist Kylie Masse. She was a member of the 2022 Commonwealth roster where she won the gold medal in the 50 backstroke and finished 2nd in the 100 and 200 backstroke events. She also participated on the silver medal mixed and women’s 400 medley relay teams.
She will be joined by fellow Olympians Ella Jansen, Sophie Angus, and Julie Brousseau as well as 2025 World Championship team member Madison Kryger and WUGs team member Delia Lloyd.
On the men’s side Josh Liendo is the biggest name, having just broken the World Record in the SCM 100 butterfly last weekend at the final stop of the World Cup. In 2022, he won the gold in the 100 fly and finished with the bronze in the 50 free and the men’s 400 free relay and the mixed 400 free relay.
The only other male Olympian on the roster is Lorne Wigginton. Liendo and Wigginton will lead a younger men’s team roster of Oliver Dawson, Antoine Sauve, Benjamin Loewen and Ben Winterborn. Loewen and Winterborn will be making their senior international team debut at this meet.
Swimming Canada National Coach and High Performance Lead Mark Perry will be the team’s head coach while the University of Toronto Assistant Linda Kiefer will take the other coaching position.
Women’s Roster
| Swimmer | Club | Coach |
| Sophie Angus | HPC Ontario | Ryan Mallette |
| Julie Brousseau | Nepean Kanata Swim Club | Anthony Nesty |
| Ella Jansen | Etobicoke Swim Club | Rob Collins |
| Madison Kryger | Brock Niagara Aquatics/HPC Ontario | Ryan Mallette |
| Delia Lloyd | Etobicoke Swim Club | Ignacio Gayo |
| Kylie Masse | Toronto Swim Club |
Men’s Roster
| Swimmer | Club | Coach |
| Oliver Dawson | Grand Prairie Piranhas | Alex Dawson |
| Josh Liendo | North York Aquatic Club/U Florida | Jack Szaranek/Anthony Nesty |
| Benjamin Loewen | University of Toronto | Byron MacDonald/Linda Kiefer |
| Antoine Sauve | CAMO Natation/U Michigan | Gunnar Schmidt |
| Ben Winterborn | University of Toronto/HPC Ontario | Ryan Mallette |
| Lorne Wigginton | Etobicoke Swim Club/U Michigan | Gunnar Schmidt |
Team Staff
| Title | Staff |
| High Performance Director | John Atkinson |
| Team Manager | Bette El-Hawary |
| Head Coach/Team Leader | Mark Perry |
| Team Coach | Linda Kiefer |
| Massage Therapists | Jessica Sears/Monty Churchman |
| Race Analysis | Graham Olson |
| Team Media | Nathan White |
What a bunch of soft swimmers
Half the team is Olympians? What’s soft about that. This meet gives the opportunity to up and comers to break into the international stage.
I suggest cancelling the colonial Games, send GB teams to the Euros, AUS/CAN/RSA teams to Pan Pacs, so we can have higher levels of competitions everywhere.
Your name is an absolutely atrocious take
I have been using it for a while (since the World Junior Championships) and I will stick to it until the World Cup is in long course again.
This year’s World Junior Championships is the best one of the last three editions by the way.
So we can pretty much call all the relays for Australia then (maybe except the men’s medley)? Canada will struggle to even enter most of them
Yep but England should start as favourites in the men’s medley. Their first two legs i assume of Morgan and Peaty are far ahead of the aussies in this area and on fly Mildred has made some solid improvements this year and young Jacob Mills is emerging on freestyle as a major talent, so they should have enough in hand to hold off a fasting closing Chalmers. As it currently stands at least!!
Yeah agreed.
Allan is making improvements in back but realistically should still be at least a second slower than Morgan. Who knows what form Peaty will be in but he probably has at least a second on whoever Australia puts up. Temple will definitely gain ground on fly and I trust Kyle to anchor.
Don’t think it’ll be a blowout but yeah GB are favourites for now.
Do we have any indication if Swimming Australia is sending their best team to CG next year? We don’t really know about England either (or what status they’ll be in), with Euros being right there too.
https://swimswam.com/european-aquatics-sets-dates-for-2026-european-championships-avoids-commonwealth-conflict/
Swimming Canada is saying athlete choices were based on ‘individual plans’ (which is likely heavily influenced by the fact that very few of their best swimmers train in Canada, so they have to decentralize). Wonder if GB or Australia will take a more centralized approach and declare one meet or the other a priority.
Commonwealth Games are big news in the main stream media in the UK. So they’ll always be taken seriously by GB athletes
For England I imagine it will be their strongest team. The Commies is a pretty big thing in terms of national TV coverage on at prime time during the evenings and typically attracts a far broader audience of casual sports fans rather than just swim nerds. I believe this strong squad selection is evidenced in previous years where the Commies and Europeans have ‘clashed’.
Swimming Australia selection policy currently says 42 swimmers for Comm games maximum. And 56 for Pan Pacs.
The Comm Games team will be bigger because the QTs for Pan Pacs are brutal.
It’s almost a certainty that no prelims will be needed for womens freestyle relays at Commies. And at Pan Pacs relay prelims won’t be needed.
So hopefully Australia will consider sending the No. 5 and 6 women from the 100 and 200 Free at Trials to Pan Pacs to swim the prelims of the individual events. Because Australia are in a rebuilding phase and it doesn’t help if people like Wunsch or Jansen, Casey, Castelluzzo and Webb are sitting out both Commies and Pan Pacs because of the lack of relay prelim opportunities.
They are the same for both Pan Pacs and Comm games as far as I can see but the priority 3 for Commies (don’t know how many spots will be available if they are only taking 42) is a bit slower.
Is that what you mean?
Yep. They can fill the team up using the priority 3 QTs which PPs doesn’t have and the selection criteria allows 3 per event while PPs doesn’t. At least that’s my understanding of the criteria when I read them a while back.
In Australia literally no one knows about Pan PACs. I would say the majority don’t even know there are World Champs. Comm Games is basically treated like a second Olympics though. Much more exposure and potential to make money by winning at CGs.
I will be pretty shocked if there are more than a handful of Aussies who skip CGs and only do Pan Pacs.
Yeah but swimmers are kind of famous for making bad business decisions.
Firstly, these CGs will be in the middle of the night in Australia, so not huge exposure. 2nd, the title world champion means something to Australians – Commonwealth champion, not very much in most sports, including swimming. I don’t think athletes in Australia have had any endorsement deals on the back of CG results for many years. Finally, Swimming Australia has already said its main meet next year is PPs, and I think many people will watch the battles between Regan and Kaylee and Summer v Katie v Lani, which you won’t get at CGs.
The Commonweath Games don’t mean as much cukturally to the current young Canadian generation as they did in the 1970s, 80s and even the 90s. Having grown up in those decades we anticipated watching CG as much as we did the Olympics. There used to be a much stronger sense of connection to Great Britain, especially given the deep alliance btwn Great Britain and Canada during WW2, and the Queen signing our Constitution in 1982, but not as much now.
Perhaps it is partly due to the fact the current swim generation are self-directed professionals in a way they never were 40 years ago, and they are just going to go where it’s more lucrative?
But you’re right:… Read more »
It’s not GB. It’s England, Scotland etc.they are separate for Commies.
Sorry yes I meant England, not GB.
Scotland could actually have a shot at a medal in a relay or two as well.
I’ve heard McMillan may swim for Scotland, so their men’s 4×2 could be very competitive with Australia – Scott, McMillan both 1.45low, plus a 1.46 man and a 1.47 all in 2025. Their women’s medley will be strong too, Angharad Evans switched from England to Scotland after going to Uni in Stirling, so they’ll have British back, breast and fly champs.
On the mens side, I wouldn’t call any of the relays, they’ll be competitive imo. Australia could fairly easily win them all or lose them all.
Oh I didn’t realise you could just switch like that? McMillan is Irish, no?
On paper AUS should still comfortably beat Scott/McMillan/Hutchison/Jones (assuming that’s the quartet you mean?) but form has been inconsistent. Taylor’s best flat start this year was a 1:46.2 but he out split that in the relay by 1.6, Giuliani was similar.
Yeah that could be a silver medal medley relay from Scotland for the women but should be significantly slower than Aus in 3/4 legs.
I would call Aus men comfortable favourites (but certainly not unbeatable) in both freestyle relays at this point.
I didn’t know GB swimmers can switch teams like that. If so, is there any chance that Nowacki swims for England? Is he eligible to switch since he’s training at Millfield?
British swimmers can switch if they have been resident for three years – Jack moved from NI to Scotland in 2022, so he’s Scotland qualified. Same with Evans and Schlosshan – Stirling/Edinburgh attracting talent from the rest of the UK has been a real win for Scottish Swimming in that regard.
Who do Edinburgh attract!?
Will GB attend this as respective nations or Europeans?
Tricky not to turn up when it’s being hosted in Glasgow. They’ll attend as respective nations as they always do, perhaps on a scaled down basis.
Luka Mijatovic to Texas. Someone get an article out ðŸ˜
Dang swimming wlrd already got an article out
I mean.
We’ve all known it for a few weeks.
But his ‘official’ announcement is going out tomorrow.
So like…could we report now? For sure. Then everyone would be mad that he didn’t get to make his official announcement tomorrow. Kind of paints us into a corner lol.
Did we? I don’t remember.
Take your time with this. Huge news and this should be done the right way with a generational recruit
Hahaha!
What a farce this will be.
OMG the Comm Games are cooked if that’s all a country like Canada can bother sending.
So close to Pan Pacs hurts it even more this year.
The Commonweath Games were HUGE in the 1970s and 1980s. Definitely not anymore.