Day 2 of the 2012 Canadian Summer National Championships are in the books, and the future of Canadian Swimming continued to shine.
The Womens 100 free was owned by Chantal Van Landeghem (55.20), who will head to Georgia in the U.S. in the fall. VanLandeghem missed the Canadian Olympic Team in March, after a strong showing last summer at both World Championships and Junior World Championships. Hopes are high that she will represent Canada well at the Junior Pan Pacs in Hawaii this summer. She also finished second to Dominique Bouchard in the 50 back tonight.
The Mens 100 freestyle, was a pretty strong field including Chad Bobrosky, Hassaan Abdel Khalik, 2008 Olympian Jake Tapp. Abdel-Khalik won in 50.91, ahead of a tie between Luke Peddie, who seems to be the future of Canadian men’s sprinting, and Kelly Aspinall. Those two touched 2nd in identical times in 50.98. Tapp was 4th in 51.08.
Ashley McGregor posted the fasted prelim time in the womens 100 breast (1:09.66) and had a tight win in finals with a final time of 1:08.87. She was followed closely by hard charging Kierra Smith (1:09.02), Rachel Nicole (1:09.12) and Tianna Rissling (1:09.30). It was an exciting race that came down to a nail-biting finish; clearly evident that women’s Breaststroke in Canada is quite competitive.
On the Men’s side of the same sprint breaststroke, Richard Funk looked extremely strong, finishing in 1:01.42. Warren Barnes (1:02.18) and Jason Block (1:02.32) finished 2nd and third respectively. Barnes, who was looking to make the Olympic Team earlier in the year seemed happy with his race. It will be interesting to see how he does in the 200 on Sunday.
Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson, posted a strong 400 IM (4:44.55) after trading in her green Nepean Kanata Barracuda’s cap for a new bright orange Greater Ottawa Kingfish cap earlier this month. Erika faught hard with MANTA’s Breanne Siwicki (4:46.79) until the first 50 of breaststroke where she pulled ahead and never looked back. Unbelievable to see how much Erika has improved since October of this season.
It was a dog fight in the mens 400 IM between Oakville Aquatic Club’s Mack Darragh, Kelowna’s David Dimitrov and Vancouver’s Luke Reilly. Dimitrov pulled ahead in the first 25 of breaststroke and looked to be cruising to the win, but within the last 45m, 16-year-old Luke Reilly powered home (his freestyle split was 58.31). Dimitrov was breathing to the opposite side and totally missed the hard charging Reilly who out touched Dimitrov for the win. Jeffery Swanston would have also been in the mix, had the USC recruit not decided to scratch to focus on the 50 back tonight and the 200 backtomorrow night.
Speaking of Swanston and the 50 back, the Swanston brothers found themselves on the podium together again with 21-year-old Matthew finishing 1st (25.88) and 18-year-old Jeffery finishing 2nd (26.12); reversing the finish order of Thursday’s 100. Omar Arafa (with a new look in an Oakville Aquatics Cap) finished 3rd (26.26).
The results for womens 1500FR, swum on Thursday, were finally posted this morning. 15-year-old Alexandra Aitchison, swimming unattached (but represents Sun Devil Aquatics in the USA), finished first with a time of 16:54.28. Nadine Williams of Alberta finished second in 16:57.18 and Toronto’s Heather Maitland was 3rd in 17:05.11.
Live results can be found here: http://results.teamunify.com/c
