Ben Titley, the head coach of Swimming Canada’s High Percormance Centre – Ontario in Toronto, will take a group of National Team swimmers to race at the Swim England National Winter Championships and Lausanne Swim Cup in December.
Kayla Sanchez, Rebecca Smith, Taylor Ruck, and coach Alexandra Ruyter will join Titley on the trip out of the Toronto-based training group. Kierra Smith, who trains at the University of Minnesota in the United States, will also join the group.
The Swim England National Winter Championships will be held in Sheffield, England, where Titley had many big meets as a coach when he used to coach at the Loughborough performance center in the UK. That meet has been a short course event in each of the last two years, but as a preparation for the upcoming Commonwealth Games, has been converted to long course this season.
Both meets will be long course and are expected to draw big European names coming straight off the European Short Course Championships. Among the participants already announced for Lausanne are Katinika Hosszu, Ranomi Kromowidjojo, Kosuke Hagino, Daiya Seto, Leah Smith, Chase Kalisz, Michael Andrew, and Kevin Cordes.
Ruck, Sanchez, and Smith put on a show in short course meters two weeks ago at the North York Aquatic Club Cup, with Ruck breaking 3 Canadian Age Group Records. Sanchez was on Canada’s 400 and 800 free relays at the 2017 World Championships, while the freestyler Smith was on all 3 women’s relay at Worlds plus their bronze-medal-winning mixed 400 medley relay.
Smith raced individually in the 100 breaststroke (6th place, 1:06.90) and 200 breaststroke (5th place, 2:22.23), and also swam on the team’s women’s 400 medley relay that took 4th. Ruck missed the 2017 Worlds team after a bad trials meet, but was a part of the bronze-medal-winning Canadian 400 and 800 free relays.
Meet Details
Swim England National Winter Championships
- December 13th-17th, 2017
- LCM (50m)
- Sheffield, England
- Meet Site
Lausanne Swim Cup
- December 20th-21st, 2017
- LCM (50m)
- Lausanne, Switzerland
- Meet Site
Editor’s note: Kierra Smith, who is covered in this article, is a paid contributor of SwimSwam.com.
