Day 4 at the 2012 Canadian Olympic Trials will be one of the quieter days of the meet, though there will be at least one great race in the women’s 200 IM with a battle between Calgary’s Erica Morningstar and Island Swimming’s Julia Wilkinson in the 200 IM.
The pair topped the morning prelims in 2:14.27 and 2:15.50, respectively; the difference in the times came from the breaststroke leg where Morningstar (an A-finalist in the 100) split almost three seconds faster than Wilkinson. That should be a similar pattern in the evening final, though Wilkinson is a much better breaststroker than she showed in this race.
Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson (this girl’s going to be good – someone needs to get her a nickname) wasn’t too far behind in 2:15.79. She’s also an outstanding breaststroker, and she couples it with a great finishing freestyle kick as well. That brought her within three-tenths of Sinead Russell’s 15-17 National Age Group Record in the race, and she could very well clip that tonight (even though she’s only 16).
In the 200 fly prelim, where there’s likely only one spot up for grabs, Audrey Lacroix out of PPO took the top seed in 2:11.25, followed by MacKenzie Downing in 2:12.00. The pair are both veterans of the sport, and Downing has had a resurgent meet so far. But not far behind is 16-year old Noemi Thomas. She disappointed many fans with her finish in the 100 fly, but her 2:12.99 in prelims here is a lifetime best.
And in the men’s 100 free, Brent Hayden (who is already comfortable with his standing after a silver in Shanghai last year) took the top seed in 48.68 – very similar to what we saw from Nathan Adrian, one of his big medal competitors, in the US yesterday. He should feel good about his place at the top of the podium, but his goal in the final will be (should be) to give his countrymates something to draft off of.
The excitement is building after Richard Hortness (49.27) took the 2nd seed in a career-best, and Colin Russell (49.37) also looked very good in 3rd. The challenge will be finding a 4th leg for a potential 400 free relay for the Olympics. As far as FINA is concerned, Canada is already qualified, but from the Swimming Canada perspective, the top four times (including Hayden’s 47.95 from Worlds) need to combine to 3:17.15 or better. That means that the three aside from Brent Hayden will need to average 49.73’s.
In prelims, they looked within reach of that, but Thomas Gossland (50.14) and Luke Peddie (50.16) will have to come close to repeating those best times in finals to really feel secure.
The women’s 800 free prelim was also this morning, but those heats could run long into the afternoon.
