Louise Hansson Swims 57.3 in 100 Fly Prelims at Canadian Trials

2019 CANADIAN SWIMMING TRIALS

• April 3-7, 2019
• Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre, Toronto, ON
• LCM (50m)
• Prelims/Finals: 9:30 am / 6:00 pm ET
• Psych Sheets
• Live Results
• Live Stream (Rectectv)
• Live Stream (CBC Sports)

Sweden’s Louise Hansson threw down a personal best time of 57.35 in the women’s 100m fly at Canada Trials, qualifying first overall for finals (although she’ll swim in the consolation final because she’s a foreign swimmer).

Hansson has been on fire in Toronto, putting forward a 55.17 100m freestyle in prelims and a 1:00.35 100m backstroke to win the consolation final. With three solid 100m swims, Hansson is almost guaranteed to have a huge impact on the Swedish relays at the World Championships this summer. With 100m butterfly and 100m freestyle world record holder Sarah Sjostrom on the relays as well, it does beg the question of who would swim what leg of the medley relay.

It makes the most sense to put Hansson on the backstroke leg after her 1:00.35. She was just shy of Sjostrom’s Swedish national record of 59.98 that she set in Eindhoven in 2015. When it comes to the 100m fly, she’s just under two-seconds shy of Sjostrom’s record. In the 100m freestlye she’s even further back, shy of the record by approximately three-and-a-half seconds. With top Swedish swimmers like Michelle Coleman in the 100m freestyle, it makes the most sense that Hansson would swim backstroke. Jennie Johansson would swim the breaststroke as usual with a PB of 1:06.30.

Their flat start time added up puts together an extremely strong relay for the World Championships, almost matching what they went to finish fifth at the World Championships in 2017.

• Backstroke – Louise Hansson – 1:00.35
• Breaststroke – Jennie Johansson – 1:06.30 (2:06.65)
• Fly – Sarah Sjostrom – 55.48 (3:02.13)
• Free – Michelle Coleman – 53.36 (3:55.49)

If you take Johansson, Sjostrom, and Coleman’s relay times from the 2o17 Championships along with Hansson’s backstroke time, they would have finished with a time of 3:53.93, which would have ranked them third behind the United States and Russia, but ahead of Australia in 2017.

Note that breaststroker Jennie Johansson announced her retirement a year ago, so Sweden will also be looking for a replacement on that leg. Louise’s younger sister Sophie, who is a freshman at NC State and is not competing at this meet, is the likely challenger for that throne. Her best is a 1:07.5, but she made huge strides during this NCAA season as well.

Hansson’s rise to prowess in backstroke makes Sweden an absolute medal threat in the medley relay. Prior to competing at Canadian Trials Hansson had a very strong NCAA season with USC, breaking Kelsi Dahlia’s 100 yard butterfly NCAA record of 49.43 with a 49.34 in the prelims at Pac12s and lowering it further to a 49.26 in the NCAA final. She also won the 200 yard fly at NCAAs in 1:50.28.