Canadian open water swimmer Philippe Guertin has opted to retire after being denied funding by Swimming Canada.
Guertin, 26, will instead begin an internship at a “prestigious firm,” and cites a troubled relationship with Swimming Canada and its new open water Head Coach Mark Perry as fueling his decision to retire.
“This past year has shown me how Swimming Canada is indifferent to swimming in open water,” he told Le Courrier de Sud (translated from French). “The first few weeks after my patent loss email on September 14th were very difficult. I could have asked for a review of my record, as [Richard] Weinberger did, but after six years of representing the country, fighting to return under the supervision of a coach who did not help open water swimmers did not make sense. My internship in a company where I dreamed to be will be more inspiring.”
Specifically, Guertin opposes Swimming Canada‘s 2018 Pan Pacific Championships selection process for the 10K — he said that of the two Canadians who will swim the race, the first to make the team will be the top 1,500m pool swimmer.
“The current top Canadian swimmer in the 1,500 meters is Eric Hedlin, but I was beating him at all the 10K races, so Perry’s theory is not proven,” he said. “If I were still active, I would be very angry. I can not believe we accept that.”
He also called out Perry’s action at the 2017 FINA World Championships: “After the 10 km of the Worlds, he gave us no feedback, no observation. His vision of open water seems to be limited to the Olympic 10 km.” He added, “Worse, he left before the big event, the 32 km, where several athletes from Quebec and Canada were in action. … Is he the head coach of open water or 10 km?”
Guertin’s retirement comes on the tail of fellow Canadian 10K swimmer Breanne Siwicki‘s November retirement. Siwicki cited “promises broken by Swimming Canada” in her decision.
To win in OW these days you need to be fast in the final few hundred meters, very fast. You need endurance, obviously, but raw speed too. The sport has come a long way. By the way I follow OW and pool swimming and Guertin’s comment about beating Hedlin at all the 10 km races is not true.
To win in OW these days you need to be fast in the final few hundred meters, very fast. You need endurance, obviously, but raw speed too. The sport has come a long way. By the way I follow OW and pool swimming and Guertin’s comment about beating Hedlin at all the 10 km races is not true.
I feel some sympathy for Philippe Guertin. He makes a reasonable argument criticizing a 1500m pool swim as being used to select one of the two spots for panpacs. The pool swim favors Hedlin and the open water swim favors Weinberger. Sorry he’s retiring on a bitter note. As for Siwicki and Perry, it sounds like neither one of them read the simple criteria used to nominate an open water swimmer for carding. She needed 8:56.71 in any SNC or FINA race after March 1 in addition to the Lac St. Jean swim. I’m curious why she didn’t even make an attempt at this.
The criticism of Perry not being interested in the 32 km event is unfair. Swim Canada is clear about the Olympic 10 km being their main interest whether or not the marathon swimmers like it. The prize money for the 32 km event at Lac St Jean is pretty good.
We’re still not allowed to participate in the 25 km race at worlds which is unfair. Swimmers from other countries swam every single race from 5km – 25 km. If you’re the best and have medal potential in a 25 km race you should be allowed to race. The 25 km race was well after the 10 km also.
I agree that Canada should have entered swimmers in the 25K at Worlds because they had potential to medal, and it would only have meant staying for a few more days. But my comment was about the complaint in the article about the 32K race in Lac St Jean.
This whole mantra of only investing in those swimmers with “potential to
Medal” is getting a bit rich….What if we only paid SNC staff if they produced an Olympic top 8 swimmer? Hmmmm let’s look at the history of these people…really, some of these people don’t have much to hang their hat on…
good point. But their emphasis on medals makes it especially strange that they wouldn’t stay the couple of extra days for the 25k. The Canadians had a realistic shot at medaling but the SNC staff disallowed it, apparently without explaining it to the swimmers.
What does this guy do? I
Mean really – stands around watching -other coaches actually COACH…
How is it unfair? Mark Perry was at the 10km in Lac St-Jean and the 32km was two days after. He is head coach of the open water team, not only the 10km. He had no problem staying a full week in Cayman islands where there were multiple events other than the 10km. Also, with your statement, since the 10 km is the main interest, Eric Hedlin shouldn’t have been allowed to swim the 5km?
These were 2 different events – Lac St Jean and the world championships. Obviously, they should have swum all distances at the world championships. Especially if they did at the Cayman islands.
What is different about Lac St Jean is that the swimmers swam with their local teams, not representing Canada. Nobody was disallowed from swimming the 32 km event. Also, swim Canada has made it clear for years that they care more about the 10k, no matter what Perry’s title is.
What do you mean, no funding? HPCO and HPCV seem to have money for ALL the trips, training camps anyone could want, even for athletes that didn’t earn their way (somehow a swimmer ended up at the Worlds staging camp that did not qualify for the team, but happened to be one of Ben’s new favorites). Follow the narrowly prescribed path SNC sets out for you or they will forget your name in a heartbeat.
They have lots of resources for pool swimmers, specifically female pool swimmers. We saw how great the Canadian women have become in the last few years but the men (with the exception of a couple events) are not much faster than the swimmers in the 80’s and 90’s. The HPC groups are made up of a majority women and the HPCO group has only two men (Gaziev and Funk I believe).
After worlds I had the plan to retire from the sport of swimming in order to focus my time on graduate school. During a meeting in the Cayman Islands, I was convinced to go for funding in order to further my career as an open water swimmer. The carding criteria spoken in words to my coach was “Breanne just has to show me something this summer.” Mr. Perry, told me that I had to be in the top three Canadians at the World Cup in Lac St Jean (where I was the top Canadian.) There was zero mention of needing an adequate performance in the pool. Being in the NCAA, I only raced yards, and spent my summer racing open… Read more »
How can you possibly down vote this? How many SNC open water coaches are there. Must be 5 since I see 5 down vote
Because Siwicki ultimately didn’t get carding because she didnt realize she also needed an 8:56.71 in an 800m pool swim. Although Mark Perry made a mistake, Siwicki should have competed at Canadian Trials like many other Canadians did who compete in the NCAA. The carding rules were published long ago and it seems she didn’t read them.
I think she is more frustrated because Mark Perry pretty much told here she would get carding regardless of criteria. Also, carding criteria for open water were released way to late last year. The swimmers had to change all their planning last minute to go swim a 800/1500.
Shoot me an email if your’e really interested in why I didn’t attend trials. It is immature to be speaking behind a handle on a comment thread.
This is such a load of BS if you know anything about the shenanigans that goes on to make sure that SNCs pool favorites manage to get all the support they need even if they don’t perform up to the standards at the events that were posted.
I would like a suggestion for an alternative selection procedure.
Perhaps a race of the relevant event where the winner is selected??
Gee, I don’t know, maybe an actual 10km trials race (and the same for other competed distances), where the top 2 finishers represent their country at the major competition. I know, I know, this is a very novel idea, but sometimes you’ve gotta think outside the box, eh?
The similarities/crossover between a pool 1500 mtr Free and an open water 10km are…….practically NIL.
There are a few examples of good open water swimmers going on to do well at the 10k. There’s Mellouli, who has won Olympic golds in both the 1500 (2008) and 10k (2012). There’s Jordan Willamovsky in the US. Paltrinieri won the world university games open water event. So not exactly NIL. the crossover between 100 breastroke and open water 10k, that’s NIL.
Three examples, two of which are among the greatest distance swimmers ever, does not help a lot in proving that point
point? I was merely responding to Brad Flood’s assertion that there was almost NIL crossover between the 1500 and the 10k. I’m not defending SNC’s decision to use the 1500 as a qualifier for an open water race. That one is odd, to say the least. But all open water swimmers have started out as fairly good distance swimmers in the pool. Maybe SNC is trying to generate more interest in open water swimming in Canada.
I was just responding to Brad Flood’s assertion that there was almost NIL crossover between the 1500 and the 10k. I’m not defending SNC’s decision to use the 1500 as a qualifier for an open water race. That one is odd, to say the least. But all open water swimmers have started out as fairly good distance swimmers in the pool. Maybe SNC is trying to generate more interest in open water swimming in Canada.
The point being that there isn’t a ton of evidence that supports a strong correlation between being a good 1500m swimmer and being a good open water swimmer, while there isn’t an absence of crossover, using outliers (ie. two of the greatest distance swimmers ever, one of which doesn’t compete in open water regularly since becoming the best 1500m swimmer on the planet) is not a good way of proving that there is indeed a crossover.
Top 2 in an open water race??
I wish you all the best for a fulfilling and inspiring retirement Philippe. You definitely deserved to be treated better by Swim Canada as did many others. I don’t see open water swimming in Canada becoming competitive any time soon. What is the point in even having an open water coach when there is almost zero support for the athletes and extremely limited training opportunities.