With this year’s major senior meets of the Commonwealth Games, Pan Pacific Championships, European Championships and Asian Games having now completed, all eyes are moving over to Hangzhou, China for the Short Course World Championships. Set to take place December 11th-16th, the competition will be produced in the 10,000 spectator capacity Tennis Centre in the Hangzhou Olympic and International Expo Center.
We’re rolling out the Short Course World Championships qualification procedures for the top-tier nations, having published Australia’s yesterday.
With with the Canadian Swimming Championships from this past April, as well as the Canadian Swimming Trials that took place last month serving as the selection meets, the nation of Canada has now just announced is small roster of athletes ready to roll in Hangzhou,
Interestingly, Canada’s qualifying procedures for Hangzhou specify that ‘swimmers who are selected to compete for Canada in the 2018 Pan Pacific Championships and the 2018 Junior Pan Pacific Championships are not eligible for the Short Course World Championships squad. This means high-profile swimmers such as Taylor Ruck, Kylie Masse, Kennedy Goss, Sydney Pickrem, Kierra Smith, Markus Thormeyer, Javier Acevedo, Mack Darragh, Richard Funk and Yuri Kisil, among several others, will not be representing Canada in China this December.
According to a Swimming Canada spokesperson, the reasoning for leaving the top talent behind is to give high-level opportunities to swimmers that fell short of making the team for the aforementioned competitions.
You can read Canada’s selection procedures document in its entirety here.
Below are the selected Canadian swimmers set to compete at the 2018 Short Course World Championships.
| NAME | CLUB | COACH | HOMETOWN | RESIDENCE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MEN | ||||
| Loginov, Alex | Toronto Swim Club | Byron MacDonald/Linda Kiefer | Toronto, ON | Vanvouver, BC |
| Perreault, Alexandre | Ottawa Swim Club | Blair Tucker | Ottawa, ON | Ottawa, ON |
| WOMEN | ||||
| Angus, Sophie | Unattached Canada | |||
| Black, Haley | Prince George Barracuda Swim Club | Sergio Lopez | ||
| Janvier, Aela | Pointe-Claire Swim Club | Martin Gingras | ||
| Wilm, Ingrid | UBC | Tom Johnson | Norwich, UK | Calgary, AB |
But why? Canadians who went to CG were eligible for pan pacs, so why is this different?
Enjoy your zero medals Canada, lol
Their only chance is Penny Oleksiak if she is on form and chooses to compete.
This must be nominee for the craziest swimming decision of the year……Oh Canada!
As a fellow Canadian and someone who loves the sport of swimming, I consider this policy to be a national disgrace. While I consider it to be essential that we allow swimmers on the cusp of breaking through internationally to get as much experience as possible, Short Course Worlds often allows for this regardless of policy since so many top tier swimmers skip the event anyway. However, by actually not allowing swimmers who would have otherwise qualified for the event, Canada will go from having 8 medals in 2016 to 0 in 2018. What an absolute joke