Swimming Canada Sheds Light On Canadian Way, Timing of Short Course Nationals

Swimming Canada announced its plan for the upcoming Olympic quadrennial in the run-up to the 2028 LA Olympics on Tuesday, releasing a tentative schedule for the next four years including dates and locations of domestic competitions.

The “Canadian Way” plan includes several new events, and a change in the timing of others, all geared towards optimal performance in the pool with the peak being the annual Trials meets—traditionally in the spring but now in the summer—and ultimately the major international event of the year for those who qualify.

The schedule left some questioning the timing and scheduling for certain events, however, specifically the Short Course National Championships.

One of the events that’s new to the domestic calendar in Canada, Short Course Nationals is scheduled to run in August every year.

While the short course season generally runs from September to March, Swimming Canada said the August date is designed to give swimmers a chance to qualify for the Short Course World Championships in addition to offering a meet in the timeframe where athletes are still at a relative peak after their summer long course championships.

“We are creating a 25m championships on the back of a long-course summer that should be very fast,” High Performance Director John Atkinson said in a statement. “This keeps the nation swimming and allows senior swimmers to continue on to a fast end-of-summer event. It will also offer an opportunity to post 25m pool times to qualify for short-course worlds, an increasingly prominent international event.”

Other questions included the timing of another new event, the Canadian Open, which will run in April. That meet is geared towards “strong domestic competition” and appears to be more of an early long course “form check” rather than a date swimmers will necessarily be tapering for.

In terms of the location selections, which is more diverse than we’ve seen in recent years with the vast majority of high-level meets being held at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre, Swimming Canada said it’s offering a balance between Eastern and Western Canada for meet sites.

The organization also said the national calendar allows and “encourages” provinces to provide their own long course championship events in the summer, reducing travel costs and “adding another layer of quality events across the country for the masses.”

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“We believe this new ‘Canadian Way’ is cutting edge, based on thorough consultation over eight months with carded coaches, Athlete Advisory Council and other national team athletes, coaches of carded athletes, provincial executive directors and technical leads, high performance staff, technical experts and performance science staff,” Atkinson said.

On the timing of annual Trials events, which now aligns with when powerhouses Australia and the United States hold their events, Atkinson said:

“We considered very carefully the placement of Trials and went into deep discussions with our carded coaches and sport science staff, looking at the performance data including training periodization. This work and the carded coaches discussions showed the strategy of a later Trials, including junior finals, was the right direction for swimming in Canada. The junior final at our Trials has been implemented very successfully the last two years.”

The Canadian Way plan for the 2025-28 quad was first announced in May 2023.

“This effort will deliver events that are good for all in Canada, and requires carded swimmers to attend a very minimal requirement of three events i.e. the Open, the Trials and the short-course championships,” Atkinson said.

A “carded” swimmer refers to those that receive funding from the Sport Canada Athlete Assistance Program.

• You can find the 2023-24 carded swimmers here.

“After the consultation with all parties and making the decisions ahead of time it’s an exciting time for coaches, athletes and provinces to work ahead to support the national strategy they helped to create,” Atkinson continued.

“In short we’ve consulted, we’ve delivered on what we said last year that we would do, now all can make their plans and go for it. The sky’s the limit!”