The Leaving London Series: Canada

The consistently stated goal of Swimming Canada's CEO Pierre Lafontaine was 3 medals at the Olympic Games in 2012.

BRENT HAYDEN - BRONZE (100FR - 47.80)
RYAN COCHRANE - SILVER (1500FR - 14:39.63)
RICHARD WEINBERGER - BRONZE (10KM - 1:50.00.3)

By my count that is 3 medals.  Primary goal SUCCESSFUL.  Canada was on the podium just as many times as host Great Britain, which would have be considered a pretty good feat.

How about beyond the medals metric?

I'm not privy to what the team's goals were beyond the appearances on the medal podium.  Some of the stronger Canadian performances...

- Women's 4x200FR Relay -- 4th
- Sinead Russell 200BK -- 8th
- Martha McCabe 200BR -- 5th
- Tera van Beilen 100BR -- 9th missed out on the Final by losing swim off
- Brittany MacLean 400FR -- 7th

However, beyond these swims we have a long way to go.  With a good deal of the Olympic Team primed to retire after this Olympiad it's incumbent that those on the Canadian Jr. Teams really start to press up to the big team and perform.  We need more Tera van Beilen, Sinead Russell, Brittany MacLean-type progressions from recent Junior success to International relevance and we need them soon.  The athletes are there, I see them on deck at meets all across the country.  The development meets are in place, the sheer number of national development teams and racing opportunities are more impressive then I can ever recall in my 25 years being involved in Canadian swimming.

The onus is now on the coaches, swimmers, and all relevant support staff to aggressively push forward and perform on the International stage and for those who have not yet been able to perform beyond National team vets like Hayden, Lacroix, Wilkinson, Oriwol, Dickens, and Bartoch the kids need to exceed the level of those mainstays.

It's going to be an exciting quadrennial, new blood needs to emerge, the degree to which we are successful at developing new elite talent will determine how we will progress come Rio 2016.

TOMORROW... Improbable Forecasting For The Next Four Years