A Look At The First Two Days Of Canadian Trials

Just finished watching the Finals of Day 2 at the Canadian Olympic Trials and there have been some amazing swims and fascinating story lines...

Firstly, who is on the team?

WOMEN (7)
Brittany MacLean (ESWIM) - 400FR
Savannah King (VAND) - 400FR
Katerine Savard (CSQ) - 100FL
Julia Wilkinson (IS) - 100BK
Sinead Russell (BLUE WAVES) - 100BK
Stephanie Horner (IS) - 400IM
+ Martha McCabe (VAND) 200BR (pre-nominated)

MEN (7)
Alec Page (IS) - 400IM
Scott Dickens (VAND) - 100BR
Blake Worsley (IS) - 200FR
David Sharpe (HTAC) - 200FL
Charles Francis (PPO) - 100BK
+ Brent Hayden (VAND) - 100FR (pre-nominated)
+ Ryan Cochrane (IS) - 1500FR (pre-nominated)



THE GOOD

Alec Page has to considered the start of the meet so far, he won the 400IM in a good best times, which positions himself ascend to the status as one of the world's best 400IMers over the next quadrennial.  He may do well in 2012 but watch this kid come 2016.  Page also won a bronze medal in the 200FL and went under 2:00, in 1:59.99.  The kid is strong and is a future cornerstone of Canadian swimming.

Brittany MacLean's 400FR was the single best performance of the meet so far, lowering the Canadian record to 4:06.08.  MacLean will be seen again in the 200 and 800 freestyles... she's good.

Julia Wilkinson's underwater fly kick.  She won that 100BK and broke 60 because her turn was fantastic.  Sinead had Wilkinson but Wilkinson's underwater fly kick was far superior to Sinead's and the race was over but thankfully both were under the FINA 'A' cut and they will live to fight again in London.

Katerine Savard was not as sharp as she has been but she's sooo talented and now officially off to London and Scott Dickens was good enough to get the W.

THE BAD

The failure of the men to qualify a 4x200FR relay...  The two best Canadian 200 freestylers chose to opt out of the 200FR (Brent Hayden and Colin Russell), which means Blake Worsley should buy those gentlemen something very nice as a thank you gift.  In all honesty, the top 4 men were nowhere close to getting to qualifying a team, which is upsetting because the 200FR used to be a very strong event for Canadian men... now... not so much.

SportsNet's broadcast.  Faulds is doing a decent job although he can't pronounce French names to save his life.  Malar is fumbling over names and facts, which is pretty sad because she is the colour commentator is supposed to play the role of the expert.  The camera angles have left a lot of be desired, which was epitomized by the no-camera victory of David Sharpe in the 200FL.  The heavy focus on the favourites have hurt, this sport is not professional wrestling and not everything plays out to script and the focus on Hirniak and Komarnycky was painful to watch tonight, the unpredictability of Trials and the emotion of the results is what makes Trials so great and I feel that SportsNet is missing that point.

THE UGLY

Not that it was ugly but I felt for Zack Chetrat tonight... he had that 200FL won tonight at 150, Chetrat is an animal in the training pool and if you would have told him that he'd be only .12 behind Hirniak at 150 and more then .3 ahead of anyone else with 50 to go then Chetrat would probably say he'd win that race 999 times out of 1000... but Sharpe got there in the last 5m.  Wow.

After being seemingly written off by a lot of people, Stephanie Horner stepping up on the day and claiming that 400IM Olympic spot... unbelievable.  Her interview following her race was quite candid, she's bounced around and has not looked very good over the last few years but it was amazing for her to FIND A WAY.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Great words by Brent Hayden tonight in that video montage at the end of the show.  The notion of INVESTING his time in the sport rather then SACRIFICING his time...  Brilliant, a tip of my hat to Brent Hayden.  I hope a lot of young swimmers saw that statement.