Ever since the host nation’s medal success of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, the message to all high-level Canadian athletes has been as unambiguous as it has been clear: Canada is in it to win. No apologies.
That’s the attitude with which the Canadian swim team will head to the 2014 Commonwealth Games from July 23 to Aug. 3 in Glasgow, Scotland.
The 30-swimmer team was finalized following the completion of the four-day Canadian trials Saturday evening in a packed and steamy Saanich Commonwealth Place pool. Island swimmers Glasgow-bound are two-time Olympic medallist Ryan Cochrane, world championships medallist Hilary Caldwell, Olympian Alec Page and Will Brothers. The Commonwealth Games coach will be Randy Bennett of Victoria, who also guided the Canadian swim team at the 2012 London Summer Olympics and 2013 FINA world championships in Barcelona.
And everybody knows the expectations. It’s no longer acceptable to be satisfied with receiving the blazer and marching in the opening ceremony.
“We want to achieve what are world-level performances and to focus on what it takes to be the best in the world,” said John Atkinson, high-performance director for Swimming Canada. “We have to aim higher than just what we do in Canada [national-level meets].”
Victoria athletes certainly got the directive. They accounted for two of Canada’s three swim medals at the 2012 London Summer Olympics — Cochrane’s silver in the 1,500 freestyle and Richard Weinberger’s bronze in the open-water 10K. Island swimmers also scored all four of Canada’s swim medals at the 2013 world aquatics championships in Barcelona — two by Cochrane and one each by Caldwell and Eric Hedlin.
“We train in this pool [Saanich Place] each day and push each other to be better,” said Cochrane, who won the 1,500 Saturday to add his national trials titles in the 200 and 400 freestyles from earlier in the week. “It’s great to have guys beside you pushing you. It’s a great place to be. Twenty years later, this facility is still world class.”
The six-time world championship medallist Islander, who at Glasgow will be looking to defend his Commonwealth Games gold medals in the 400- and 1,500-metre freestyle from Delhi 2010, is the greatest Canadian distance swimmer in history. Cochrane will lead the Canadian swim team into the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacific championships on the Gold Coast, 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games and 2015 world championships in Kazan, Russia, with the ultimate goal being a third Olympic medal at Rio 2016.
Atkinson is one year into the Canadian high-performance job from swim administration in Great Britain. Like Canada in the 2010 Winter Olympics, Britain is another nation that received a medals-winning bump and added a swagger and different attitude from hosting the 2012 Summer Olympics.
In both Canadian and British sport, it’s now not a dirty thing to be talking openly about winning without hesitation or apology. Atkinson also spent six years with Aussie swimming, which didn’t hurt when it comes to sporting swagger.
Not every athlete can reach the top of the podium, of course. But even every rookie this past week who qualified for the Games, talked on the Saanich pool deck about at least getting a “second swim” in Glasgow, meaning at minimum advancing out of the first round.
“The importance of this summer is that we want our [rookie] swimmers to be part of a multi-sport event so they can experience through the Commonwealth Games what life is going to be like for them at Rio 2016,” said Atkinson.
More than 500 swimmers from more than 100 clubs had gathered here from across Canada. Besides the 30 spots filled for the Canadian swim team for the Commonwealth Games, 36 were filled for the team for the 2014 Pan Pacific championships Aug. 21-25 on the Gold Coast of Australia. Most who qualified will swim both events this summer. (The trials for the open-water swimmers — including Olympic-medallist Weinberger and world championship medallist Hedlin — are next week in Florida).
Saanich Commonwealth Place has previously hosted both events — the vaunted Aussies in the 1994 Commonwealth Games, and then the 2006 Pan Pacific swim championships, which included the Michael Phelps-led U.S. team and in which seven world records were set.
SPLASH NOTES: The Canadian trials for the 2015 Pan Am Games and 2015 world championships are in Toronto . . . The bid battle for the Rio 2016 Canadian Olympic swim trials is between Edmonton, Quebec City, Montreal and Toronto.
